


We Can Be Heroes Just For One Day

by KillerLaurel



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, F/M, M/M, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-03-30 03:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 48
Words: 24,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3920710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillerLaurel/pseuds/KillerLaurel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of New York, the Avengers move into Stark Tower one by one and find things are not what they expected. Natasha and Clint will find that they don't need to erase their pasts. Bruce will begin an epic bromance with Darcy in Mad Scientist Land. Steve will find that somethings he was wrong about, very wrong, but it's okay anyway. Thor… will inevitably find the Pop Tarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Natasha moved into Stark/ Avengers Tower, she had expected Stark to be either absent or overbearing. When he had invited the team to stay with him over shawarma, none of them had taken him very seriously, except maybe Bruce, who knew enough about post battle shock in an amateur to tell Stark wasn’t still riding the high of adrenaline. So when Natasha showed up at the Tower with a pair of duffle bags, she didn’t expect there to be a floor done up in dual tones of peach and white for her, with subtle accents of soft purple that spoke of Clint’s preferences. She didn’t expect JARVIS to talk to her like she was a perfectly normal part of the computer’s routine, or for Stark to send her an invite up for a pizza party ‘for team bonding’ but not make an appearance himself. He had spared to time to consider her, but wasn’t trying to invade her life. She found herself appreciating that. It was when a vent in the kitchenette popped open and Clint dropped out that she almost had a heart attack, pulling her gun from its ankle holster and point it at him for a good few seconds before she registered there wasn’t a threat.  
“You’re late,” Clint said to her, opening the fridge and drinking straight from a carton of orange juice. “I’ve been here almost a week.”  
“You said you were going to LA.”  
“I did. Picked up some stuff from one of my places, talked Kate into taking care of Lucky, came straight here.”  
“Why?”  
Clint hesitated. “Tony - he spoke with me after New York. He knows about the mind control, knows about the guilt. Nothing you hadn’t said to me. But then he asked if I judged him for all the people his weapons had killed, when SI was double-dealing. I said I couldn’t because he hadn’t been the one doing it, even if he made the weapons. Then he said... he said how could I blame myself for killing the people I did, when I hadn’t been the one doing it? He helped me more in one conversation than the SHIELD psychologists had a week. So I came. He gave me free access to the vents - they’ve got a biometric security system, did you know - and he had a whole fucking shoot range slash jungle gym designed for urban stealth training. And my room has a balcony! On the 80th floor, Nat!” He threw himself onto the couch in what Natasha realized was their shared living space.  
“So you’re friends,” she summed up.  
“He’s a lot nicer than people give him credit for. You should try getting to know him for real.”  
“For real?”  
“I read the file you put together on him. Hardly an accurate assessment. From what he’s said, he knew there was something off about you the minute you showed up.” That stung. Clint had never questioned her work before, and for him to tell her she’d been so far off the mark - she needed to understand how she’d been so wrong. That would require up close observation, which meant she needed to interact with the billionaire. Last time she’d tried to figure him out, she’d lied her way in, and apparently Stark had sensed the falseness of Natalie Rushman. But to approach with her true self? Clint and Coulson were the only ones who hadn’t be frightened, disgusted, or judgemental when they got to know what she’d done. He hardly had the moral high ground, her subconscious said.   
“Maybe I should try,” she said, “for real, this time.” Clint smiled up at her and she knew she’d said the right thing.   
“Your room is that way,” he said, pointing down a hall to the left. “Mine is down that way,” he pointed to the hall to the right. “We’ve got our own spa-level bathrooms. Much better than SHIELD barracks.” He seemed satisfied. Natasha went to unpack, shutting the door behind her.  
“JARVIS?”  
“Yes, Miss Romanov?”  
“How long did Tony know I was spying on him?”  
“He cites your resume. You were designed to attract him, yet neither accept nor refused his advances. It was suspicious.”  
“Why didn’t he confront me about it? Why not after, when I revealed myself? How did he know I wasn’t there to steal from him?”  
“He thought it more prudent to feed you bad information and it would have been counterproductive to reveal himself when you revealed yourself. I believe he knew you weren’t there to steal based on the the surveillance I performed while you were in possession of a StarkPad.”  
A chill went through her. She had taken that Pad everywhere with her as part of her cover. She had contacted SHIELD in the presence of that Pad.  
“Were you sending Stark naked pictures of me?” she asked to cover her reaction. She didn’t want to contemplate what Stark knew if he had access to her conversations with SHIELD  
“No,” and god help her, JARVIS sounded authentically offended. “Mister Stark has never asked me to do such a thing. I believe it goes against his morals.” And now Stark’s computer was defending his morals. She had offended a computer.  
“Where is Stark now?”  
“He’s in his “No Explosives Allowed” lab. Shall I let him know you’re on your way?”  
“If you want.”


	2. Chapter 2

Of all the things that Natasha expected to be happening in Stark’s lab, she had not expected this. Through the glass she could see Stark hugging a young woman, who looked to be maybe 24, with long dark hair, and who was only a few inches shorter than Tony. Call him Stark, she reminded herself. She knocked on the glass door and hated that it sounded hesitant. The two broke apart and smiled at each other. Stark ruffled the girl’s hair, and she moved to sit at a work station. The door clicked open and Natasha entered.  
“Good to see you, SuperSpy2; what took so long?”  
“Oh you know, things to do, people to kill,” she replied blandly. Stark laughed.  
“Nat, I want you to meet Darcy, my lab assistant and daughter.”  
Wait, what? Had Natasha heard him right?   
“I can see you’re confused,” Stark continued. “But she’s been very well hidden. There’s no reason you should have been able to find out about her.”  
“Just like I shouldn’t know that you made me the minute you saw my resume?” She didn’t mean for it to sound bitter.  
“I’ve had practice with spies. Maybe not the kind that kill people usually, but practice. And I’m a genius hacker with a supercomputer AI. Not to mention you had no idea what you were up against. Nobody ever expects there to be an intelligent human being behind the drinking and fucking. No one expects it, so they don’t see it. You saw what I wanted you to, and nothing more. Is this a good time to maybe apologize for reading your SHIELD file, and not the itty bitty spider one they gave me when Phil asked me to Avenge shit, but the real, uber classified one that I hacked SHIELD to get? I mean I probably should apologize, because that was a major breach of privacy and Clint might have punched me for reading his file, but then he totally asked me to play Mario Cart with him after so maybe that’s just a Hawkeye thing? I don’t know. Maybe I should shut up not. Darcy, shut me up please.”  
Darcy reached over and slapped a hand across her father’s mouth with a little more force than was probably necessary, making Tony yelp. Natasha stood frozen. She had no idea what she was feeling, because the mix of terror, fear, self-disgust, worry, fear, shock, and the desire to run as fast and as far as she could was overwhelming.   
“You’ll have to forgive Tony,” Darcy said. “He babbles when he’s nervous or deflecting. Pretty sure you make him nervous though seeing as he actually apologized to you. That’s rare; treasure it.”  
“I will,” her voice was cold and the Starks flinched. “So you know everything about the Black Widow?”  
“I wouldn’t say everything,” Tony said. Natasha thought she could call him Tony now that there were two Starks in the building. And because you want to,her mind whispered to her. Ever since he was dying and you saw a glimpse of the true Tony Stark. “I don’t know what you like for breakfast - Clint likes scrambled eggs with entirely too much salt, and real bacon - and I don’t know what movies you like, or music, or if you actually like ballet like Clint said or if he was just jerking my chain. Yes, I know what they made you into all those years ago, but I don’t know who you decided to be.”  
And there it was again, Tony Stark’s endless ability to stun her, and he did it with as much sincerity as she’d ever seen him accomplish.   
“Well, Tony,” she said. “I suppose we should start with that dinner you promised.”  
He beamed. Literally beamed. “There’s this great pizza place that JARVIS knows and they have pizzas 3 feet wide!”  
“I like cheese. All the cheese,” Natasha said, managing a small smile in return.  
“Make a note, JARVIS,” Tony said.  
“Noted, Sir. Will the others be joining you tonight?”  
“Sure, ask if they want then log their orders. Has Bruce left his lab in the past day?”  
“No, Sir.”  
“Then order a Meat Lover’s for him. And Clint likes that monstrosity with all the pepper on it, so make sure we have the red pepper in store.”  
“And for you, Sir?”  
He smirked. “All the cheese, Jarv.”  
“The usual then.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rocky Horror and it's contents do not belong to me. I am not making anything off this.

Bruce and Clint joined the three of them in Tony’s living area when the pizzas arrived. They sat around the coffee table, hands full of hot bread and cheese, when suddenly Tony clapped his greasy hands, startling them all, and announced, “Now that I have you all together, I want to tell you something. I’ve been waiting until the right moment, but as Pepper is always naggin me, I have a tendency to get distracted so let’s get this over with -”  
“Please tell me you aren’t dying again,” Natasha said, dread pooling in her stomach as she set aside her slice of pizza. She wondered if he was trying to tell them about Darcy being his daughter, and if so, why had he told her first, in the lab?  
“No, of course not!”  
“Then what?” Bruce asked. “And what did you mean again?” he asked Natasha.  
“Nothing, there is no again. No dying!”  
Darcy broke in, “What he’s trying to tell you, is I’m his daughter.”  
Silence fell.  
“I thought you were his lab assistant!” Clint exclaimed.  
“I am. But I also happen to carry half his genetic information.”  
“Since when have you had a kid?” Bruce asked, frowning.  
“JARVIS?” Tony prompted.  
“Sir has been caring for Miss Stark for 24 years, 3 months, and 2 days, since he brought her home from the hospital.”  
“Okay? Now, back to pizza,” he said, grabbing another massive slice and digging in in such a way that everyone realized how uncomfortable the conversation was making him.  
“Hey, JARVIS, I wanna watch a movie,” Darcy said as they all finally admitted defeat and put the leftover pizza in the fridge. “I’m thinking Rocky Horror.”  
“Good plan, Mini-Me,” Tony smirked.  
“Yeah, Senior Stark, we can show these losers our moves.”  
“Roll it, Jarv.”  
“Of course, Sir.”  
The opening music for Rocky Horror Picture Show began to play and everyone perked up, emerging from their food-stupor. Natasha soon realized what Tony and Darcy had meant, as they sung along to every word with perfect harmony.  
There was a pause as the newlyweds exited the church, then...  
“Hey, Janet,” Tony said.  
“Yes, Brad?” Darcy replied, grinning.  
“I've got something to say”  
“Uh huh?”  
“I really love the...skillful way you beat the other girls to the bride's bouquet!”  
“Oh...oh, Brad.”  
Tony lept out of his seat and stood on the coffee table, posing as he sang, “The river was deep but I swam it, Janet The future is ours so let's plan it, Janet. So please don't tell me to can it, Janet. I've one thing to say and that's ‘dammit, Janet, I love you...’.”  
The two Starks sang their way through the song and collapsed giggling on the couch. Clint leaned over and whispered something in Natasha’s ear, and she smiled, nodding.  
When Tony took Riff-raff, and Darcy took Magenta, they were half way through Time Warp, when Natasha jumped in, belting out the lyrics at the highest pitch she could manage:  
“Well, I was walking down the street  
Just having a think,   
When a snake of a guy  
Gave me an evil wink   
He shook me up.   
It took me by surprise.   
He had a pick-up truck,   
And the devil's eyes.   
He stared at me,   
And I felt a change.   
Time meant nothing.   
Never would again.”  
That shut the two of them up for about two lines before they pulled Nat out of her seat and had her join in as they finished the dance.  
It shocked everyone except Natasha when Clint stood and stepped in before Tony could start singing.  
“How do you do  
I see you've met my, faithful, handyman  
He's just a little brought down  
Because when you knocked  
He thought you were the candyman  
Don't get strung out  
By the way I look  
Don't judge a book by its cover  
I'm not much of a man  
By the light of day  
But by night I'm one hell of a lover  
I'm just a sweet transvestite  
From Transexual, Transylvania  
Let me show you around  
Maybe play you a sound  
You look like you're both pretty groovy  
Or if you want something visual  
That's not too abysmal  
We could take in an old Steve Reeves movie.”  
As he sang, he sashayed around the table, one hand on a cocked hip, the other hand held under his chin as he posed. From the couch, Tony and Darcy joined in, playing Brad and Janet. As he was about to finish the song, Bruce jumped up onto the poor abused coffee table and broke in, singing in a nice baritone:  
“So come up to the lab  
And see what's on the slab  
I see you shiver with antici.....pation  
But maybe the rain  
Isn't really to blame  
So I'll remove the cause  
But not the symptom!”  
Everyone stared at him, and he shrugged, only a little embarrassed. “I was in college once too. And I’m the bioengineer anyway.”  
“Well done, Bruce!” Tony laughed, clapping. “I was right about him, wasn’t I, Mini-Me?”  
“Yes, you were, Senior Stark. He has the stuff for it.”  
“For what?” Bruce asked, glancing nervously from the scheming looks on their faces.  
“Mad Scientist Club,” Darcy explained. “You have officially earned your member card.”  
“Great, another one,” Clint groaned.  
“Shut it, Legolas. I built you arrows.” Tony said, ruffling Clint’s hair, but if Natasha’s sharp eyes noticed it was more of a caress than anything, she said nothing.  
By the end of the movie, the coffee table was looking a little unstable, but the fact that everyone shut up as Natasha sang Touch-A Touch-A Touch Me, staring with their mouths a little open, it was totally worth it. Bruce sany Eddie, with the others as his chorus, and Natasha as Columbia. They all lined up, jumping on the couch, as they sung Rose Tint My World, and so no one heard the elevator open or JARVIS announcing their guest.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve hadn’t planned to stay with Stark at all, and frankly he was surprised the man had extended an invitation to him at all, after the horrible things he’d said to Stark on the Helicarrier. When he finally decided to show up at Stark Tower, he expected Stark to come see him and lord it over him that he had all the money and toys he could want, or maybe insult him, or even try to bribe him into his good graces, but he did not expect for the talking computer, Jarvis, to guide him up to the 78th floor in a private elevator and inform him that, “Mr Stark is busy at this moment, but he and the others have gathered on the 81st floor to watch a film. There is also food. I will have your private kitchen stocked first thing in the morning, Captain Rogers.” Steve threw his duffle bags on the floor by the (very expensive looking) leather couch, and found himself relieved that at least his apartment didn’t have an obnoxious color scheme or red, white, and blue, like he had suspected Stark might try. Although, he hadn’t quite expected a whole floor to himself.  
“Thanks. Um, do I take the same elevator up?”  
“Yes, Captain. I will input the security codes that will let you onto Mr Stark’s private floor.”  
“Thank you, Jarvis.”  
“My pleasure, Captain.” And then the elevator was taking him up, and the numbers ticked up to 81, and the doors slid open. He was hit by the noise of singing before he really registered what was happening, and he blinked taking in the darkened room, and bright screen (huge, at least five feet across), and the five people jumping wildly up and down on the couch (bigger than Steve’s, and looks more expensive even).   
“My my my, my my my my my, my my my my...  
I'm a wild and untamed thing  
I'm a bee with a deadly sting  
You get a hit and your mind goes ping  
Your heart will pump and your blood will sing  
So let the party and the sound rock on  
We're gonna shake it til the life has gone  
Rose tints my world keeps me safe from my trouble and pain!”  
“JARVIS, are they in a kick line?” he asked, unsure if he had just stepped into an alternate universe.  
“I believe so, Captain.”  
“Why?”  
“It appears to be customary when watching this film.”  
“Okay?” Steve said, and it sounded a little strangled, as they all collapsed onto the couch, which rocked backward precarious. Tony Stark pounced on a young woman with long dark hair, tickling her as she shrieked and tried to kick him. Before he could think about it, Steve strode across the room and grabbed Stark’s upper arm to drag him off. The woman jumped up, startled, and vaulted over the back of the sofa, and Steve’s first thought was “Peggy”, because she had that look that Peggy had right before she tried to shoot him, and it was all dark hair, pale skin, red lipstick, and soft brown eyes. Then Steven was on the floor with no idea how he’d gotten there, a socked foot exerting a gentle warning pressure on his windpipe. The young woman stood over him with a black (gun?) that had glowing blue accents.  
“Darce! That’s Captain America! You tazed a national treasure!” Stark was yelling.  
“Like I care. He had no right to barge in here and grab you like that.” She glared down at him. “Touch my dad again and next time you won’t be waking up, got that?” She removed her foot and stepped away, little black (taser?) still held loosely in a hand, at the ready.  
“Where’d you learn to take someone down like that?” Natasha asked from the couch, brow quirked. Steve groaned and tried to sit up, but found his muscles twitchy and unresponsive.   
Dad? he wondered. When did that happen?  
“Dad got me all the best trainers when I was growing up. Happy taught me dirty boxing, Miss May taught me Eskrima, Ziva Aronov taught me Krav Maga.” She trained the weapon at Steve again as he got up, still wobbly. “And my dad taught me how to shoot.”  
“Tony can shoot?” Natasha asked.  
“Yes. He’s not as good as Clint, but who is? What you thought he’d make all those weapons without knowing how to use them? Who do you think did all the initial testing?”  
“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Steve broke in, head still reeling. “I clearly misunderstood.”  
“JARVIS, why’d you let this joker in here?” Darcy asked.  
“Sir gave me permission to see any of the Avenger’s to their living areas, as well as gave them limited access to his own space, if they were seeking him. It was within my protocols to guide Captain Rogers to Sir upon his arrival.” Behind Darcy, Tony groaned.  
“Stark -” Steve said and both Tony and Darcy turned to look at him.   
“Call me Tony or this is gonna get confusing real fast.”  
“Tony, then. I’m sorry for grabbing you. I just thought -”  
“You thought he was hurting Darcy,” Natasha spat out. “Because apparently you move into the building owned by a man you think so little of that you suspect him of attacking a girl in full view of three other people.”  
“I was wrong to think that. I didn’t even think before - you know. I -” He wavered, physically swaying on his feet.  
“How long have you been awake, Captain?” Bruce asked suddenly.  
“Um, what day is it? I think I caught a few hours on the 10th.”  
“It is Sunday the 15th of September,” JARVIS informed him.  
“You’ve been away for five days?” Darcy asked, aghast. “Bruce - !” Bruce nodded and stood, taking Steve’s arm gently and leading him back toward the elevator.   
“We’re going to get you some tea, and then you’re going to bed,” Bruce told him. “And then we can talk about your diet; you look like you’ve lost ten pounds since I last saw you.” The elevator closed and took them away, and there was a moment of silence before Clint nudged Natasha until she sighed and rose.  
“Looks like I’m going to call it a night,” she said.   
“You two will come up for breakfast, right?” Tony asked, there was a gleam in his eyes that Natasha was hesitant to call hope, even if she was feeling something similar at his invitation.  
“Of course, right Nat?” Clint asked her.  
“Yes, I’d like that,” she said, allowing herself a small smile. They too the second elevator down, the only that only went between the residential floors and the private labs.


	5. Chapter 5

When Darcy was 8, Tony had created JARVIS to watch over her, to protect her. When Darcy was 10, Pepper convinced Tony to send her to boarding school, which he had regreted every day she was gone. When Darcy was 15 she graduated high school, and instead of braving the big bad world to get her first degree, she took online classes from their house in Malibu. She had two bachelor’s and a master’s by the time she was 18, when she decided to try the real college experience. So, Tony knew his daughter was a genius, probably better than him by virtue of being better rounded, and Tony didn’t know if there was anything in the world the wouldn’t do for Darcy. When he had flown the nuke through the portal, his call had been to Darcy.  
“Dad?”  
“Jelly-bean.” His voice shook.  
“What’s wrong?”  
“Are you watching the news?”  
“I’m in Norway, it’s like 9 o’clock. I’m trying to get Jane to eat.”  
“I just - I wanted - I love you, Darcy Stark.”  
“Dad? Are you okay?”  
“Yes,” it was the first time he had ever lied to her.  
“I love you too, Dad.”  
“Goodb-” Static.  
There was nothing Tony Stark wouldn’t do for his daughter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here comes Thor 2

“Darcy?”  
“Jane? Hey! Oh my god are you back in the States?”  
“Not really. I’m heading to England to stay with my mom for a little while. I was wondering if you wanted to visit me... just for a little while maybe? I know you have a job and everything, but... I’ve lost contact with Erik. He hasn’t been answering his phone or email. Last I heard he was in the UK doing research. I need to make sure he’s okay. And I miss you. No one makes a cuppa like Darcy Lewis,” she laughed but it was watery.  
Darcy bit her lip. “About that, Jane. My name isn’t Lewis.”  
“What?”  
“It’s an alias.”  
“You’re not Darcy?”  
“I am Darcy! Just not a Lewis.”  
“Then I don’t care. You could be the Prince of Wales for all I care, so long as you’re still Darcy.”  
Darcy laughed. That was so Jane. “You’re not far off, there.”  
“So will you come?”  
“I will. Let me tell my boss I’m taking some time, and I’ll meet you at your mom’s in three days.”  
“Darcy?”  
“Yeah?”  
“You still work for Stark Industries right?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I know that Tony Stark - Ironman - fought alongside Thor... Has he been around?”  
“He left after the Battle, Jane. Had to escort Bag O’Cats home. No one’s seen the big guy since. Sorry.”  
Jane sighed. “It’s okay, Darce. I don’t know why I care. It wasn’t even that great of a kiss anyway.”  
“He said he would come back, Jane. If he doesn’t keep his word, then he isn’t worth it anyway.”  
“You’re right of course. Like usual.” she paused. “I don’t know why you used to act like you were stupid before, but I’m glad you found a place where you can be the real Darcy, even if you aren’t a Lewis.”  
“Thanks, Jane. I should go before you can’t afford your phone bill anymore.”  
“See you in a few days.”


	7. Chapter 7

Tony was going to kill Thor. No, really, he was. The news was showing a huge alien showdown in Greenwich, where he knew Darcy was, helping her astrophysicist buddy out. And there was Thor in the middle of it.  
“Are you okay?” the Kid, Harley asked him, and Tony realized he was frozen staring at the TV instead of working on... what was he working on again?  
“I’m fine. Where’s my watch?”

 

There was a fucking water tower falling on him. Tony was going to fucking kill Thor. 

 

God help him, the Kid reminded him of Darcy at that age. Still, he wouldn’t take Darcy into a fight like this, he wasn’t going to take some stranger’s kid either.   
“So you're just gonna leave me here? Like my dad?”  
“Yeah.” He paused, frowning for a moment. “Wait, you're guilt tripping me aren't you?”  
“I'm cold.”  
“I can tell. You know how I can tell? Cause' we're connected!”


	8. Chapter 8

Clint was going to kill every last one of them. Seriously. Except maybe Bruce, who was currently hiding in the basement.   
First Darcy left him to go play in another nerd’s sandbox.  
Natasha left him to make sure Steve didn’t kill himself jumping out of helicopters because of some kind of misplaced guilt.  
Tony left him to play with a terrorist.  
Thor came back, but not to him, because apparently science nerd and Darcy rated higher than a rematch of the shawarma eating contest.  
Then there were fucking aliens again, and fuck, Clint is not ready for more aliens.  
Then Tony saved the president but called to save Pepper was still in trouble and needed him.  
Then SHIELD collapsed and Clint was both unemployed and suddenly dodging a subpoena from the government. No fucking way was he showing his face when he was on Hydra’s hitlist and the only thing keeping him safe was JARVIS’s security protocols and firewalls.   
So yeah, Bruce may also be hiding from Hydra now, but he was the only one who stuck by Clint, so he was by default his new best friend. Clint told him as much.  
“That’s nice,” Bruce hummed absently from where he was peering into a microscope. “Just don’t blow anything up in here. That’s what the gym is for, you know, next door.”  
“I still find it both disturbing and oddly endearing that Tony has a whole level dedicated to explosion causing.”  
“If you can’t stop it from happening, the next best thing is to contain it,” Bruce said.  
“Like the Hulk?”  
“Well, we’ve been experimenting on the transformation. If we can install a trigger that can put the Hulk to sleep, we can stop him from damaging too much. I can control when he comes out, but we need to be able to put him back too.”  
“So what, you gonna sing him to sleep?”  
“Something like that. Like a... like a lullaby.”   
“So what’s the hold up?”  
“We can’t use music; it doesn’t encompass enough and the Hulk is touchy about loud noises. So it needs another sense like touch. But it has to be administered by someone who isn’t a threat to him. A set of words accompanied by a certain combination of touches will be our best best. Darcy has been working on setting the stage as she says, but she can’t go out in the field with us, so she can’t administer the lullaby...”  
“What about Nat?”  
“What?”  
“Nat could do it. She’s in the field, but the Hulk wouldn’t find her a threat.”  
Bruce gaped for a second. “I need to call Darcy.”  
“Why is this Darcy’s project?” Clint asked as the other man shuffled through papers trying to find his phone.  
“Hmm? Oh, she’s got a master’s in Child Psychology. She says the Hulk is a little like a child with PTSD and just needs some therapy.”  
Clint laughed for the first time all week, and he knew that everyone was going to be coming back to him. Maybe he should introduce them to Kate and Lucky, since this whoel Avengers thing looked like it was going to be permanent.


	9. Chapter 9

Thor had expected there to be more grandeur in Tony Stark’s residence. Or at least the presence of a woman. Tony Stark did not seem like the type to have an empty home and Thor had heard of the Lady Pepper.  
“Buddy!” Tony held his arms wide in welcome as Thor stepped off the elevator with Jane and Darcy. He at first thought that Tony was speaking to him, until Darcy lunged forward and enveloped the man in a hard hug. “How was the UK? Too many portals? Did you grab any alien tech for me to look at?”  
“Friend, how do you know the Lady Darcy?”  
“She works for him,” Jane told him. But she too looked stunned by the familiarity.  
Darcy mumbled something that Thor did not catch.   
“What was that, Darcy?” he asked.  
“He’s my dad,” she lifted her face away from Tony’s shirt.  
“Hey, Jelly-bean, you didn’t tell your friends before you asked them to come home with you?”  
“You asked them to come, nerd. Maybe I just wanted JARVIS to record Jane’s face?”  
“It was priceless, I suppose,” Tony agreed.  
“I had no idea,” Jane gaped.  
“Neither had I,” said Thor. “You said nothing of a daughter when we fought together.”  
“Well I don’t go around telling people. It could get Darcy killed. Now, let me show Doctor Foster to her new lab, and Darce can show Thor where he can stay when he’s here.”  
“Where will I be staying?” Jane asked.  
“What you don’t wanna stay with Thor?” Darcy teased.  
“Not so soon,” Jane shrugged. “We haven’t been together long enough for that.”  
“Okay. You actually have a room on my floor. Hope you don’t mind sharing.”  
“Darcy, I lived in a camper van in a desert for three months. I’ll survive sharing a floor in Stark Tower.”


	10. Chapter 10

Natasha gave the file to Steve and Sam and left “to build a new cover”. She went back to Stark Tower. It hadn’t been until the hearing at Congress that she’d learned Tony was still alive after the Mandarin had attacked his home. She had been startled to realize she was shaking as she watched the footage of the attack, and her first thought upon finding out he was alive was “I’m going to kill that man” and her second was “I’m going to kiss that man”. It had come upon her suddenly, and looking back, she couldn’t believe how long it had taken her to realize what she was feeling. “Love is for children” she had always said, but here she was treasuring the time she spent in the the Tower. It had been a blissful year, training with the others in the several training rooms that offered a variety of situations, against JARVIS controlled bots, learning that Tony was actually a morning person (bizarre) because he needed so little sleep to function, and that he was “a cool dad” up to the point Darcy brought a boy home (Bruce, what a surprise, how many people could actually keep up with her?) which was when Tony decided a little team bonding in the form of MarioKart was required (Bruce lost). Natasha like the way he walked around sometimes with a little black grease smear over the bridge of his nose and never noticed, or the way he looked when he was soldering a circuit board, reading glasses perched on his nose, or how she and Clint would find things delivered to their floor like a new pair of Widow Bites and a set of boomerang arrows with a note that said “knock yourself out”. Nat had asked JARVIS to frame the picture of Clint’s face when he finally got the joke. Natasha loved how it was never just her or Clint, but the both of them that wound up watching movies with Tony when he got jittery and anxious after too long awake, and when he fell asleep sprawled across their laps, Natasha stopped Clint from drawing on him.  
So when she found herself exposed to the public without a single usable alias, she ran home. Clint and Tony were waiting for her in the penthouse; she knew because they had a bowl of cheesy popcorn, which neither of them liked, and JARVIS had queued up The Lion King in German, which Natasha thought was the best way to watch it, and while Tony spoken perfect Russian, his German was only spotty, and Clint only knew tourist phrases in German from when he was undercover as Joe from Idaho.  
She slipped into the spot between them and burrowed her toes under Clint’s thigh and lay her head on Tony’s shoulder.  
“Я дома,” she said.  
“eve Hoşgeldin,” Clint greeted.  
“καλώς ήρθες στο σπίτι,” Tony said. “I’ve got three new covers ready for you to try on tomorrow, немного паук.” (Little Spider, Russian).  
“They can wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Я дома,” I’m home (Russian)  
> “eve Hoşgeldin,” Welcome Home (Turkish)  
> “καλώς ήρθες στο σπίτι,” Welcome home (Greek)  
> All translations curtesy of Google.


	11. Chapter 11

Steve was never going to give up. After that first disastrous night at Stark Tower, he’d tried to be more open about St - about Tony. After all, Darcy had turned out well, an intelligent fierce young woman, so Tony couldn’t have been a bad parent, which meant he couldn’t be a terrible person like he had pretended to be. So he had tried. But when he had mentioned Howard for the first time, the look on Tony’s face made him want to punch himself in the face. Several times. There had been hate definitely, but mostly an overwhelming look of pain, with a dash of terror. Whatever kind of man Howard had become, Steve decided he wasn’t a man he had thought he was. Any man that could instill that amount of pain and fear in their child couldn’t have been right in the head. Steve had respected Howard when they worked together, but he was forced to admit that just because the man was a genius, it didn’t mean he was a good man, and Steve, he honestly hadn’t know Howard well enough to know, not like he’d known the Commandos. Which brought him back to Bucky. Steve was never going to give up on him. So he picked up the piece of glass that Tony had told him was a phone, and searched through it for the number to Tony’s personal phone (he’d been told it was in there, he hoped that was true).   
“Hello, you have reached TechnoGod and Minion Incorporated,” Darcy’s voice answered. “With whom am I speaking?”  
“Uh, Steve.”  
“Well Uh-Steve, what can the geniuses do for the Man with a Plan?”  
“I need help finding Bucky.”  
“Where are you Steve? No, wait, I see. Corner of 1st and Washington. I suggest turning 180 degrees, walking five feet, and entering the coffee shop to your left. James Barnes has probably been tailing you for a while, because he’s on his second mocha.”  
“Wait, what?!”  
“Aw, ain’t that presh. When he turns you down, make sure you mention to him that Dad can get those bombs out of his arm for him.” She hung up on him.  
Steve turned 180 degrees.  
He walked 5 feet.  
He entered The Happy Bee to his left.  
Bucky sat in the corner nearest the emergency exit with two cup in front of him, one empty, one half full.  
“Jerk.”  
“Punk.”


	12. Chapter 12

Natasha woke up in a bed not her own, and she tensed until she recognized the weight of two arms draped across her stomach. One had archer callouses and knife scars. One had engineer callouses and burn scars. She took stock of the situation. They must be in Tony’s room because Clint had a loft in his room and this ceiling was too low for that. She still wore most of her clothes, a sports bra, and sweats, and she assumed her companions were similarly clothed. She frowned. She would have to do something about that soon.  
Tony woke because one moment he was comfortable and warm and the next he had a person straddling his legs, and someone was leaning over him, breathing in his ear. “Wake up, Tony.”  
“No.”  
“Wake up and I’ll blow you. Go back to sleep and I’ll blow Clint.” His eyes flew up. Natasha was holding herself over him, red hair trailing over his chest, over the arc reactor, and his first thought was that it had grown a lot while she was gone. His second was “Blow job, yay!” (Hey, it had been a while).  
“Nat, what are you doing?”  
“Well seeing as we’ve technically been dating for a while, I figured it’s time it came with benefits.”  
“What about Clint?”  
“I’m sure he’ll enjoy eating me out while I blow you, right, Clint?” There was a groan from the other side of the bed.  
“And here I thought I could just watch,” he said, sitting up. His hair was sticking up on end and he had pillow marks on the left side of his face.  
“He likes watching,” Natasha confided in Tony in a mock whisper as she slipped a hand under the waistband of Tony’s boxers. “It get’s him off when I narrate too.”  
“How do you know that!” Clint exclaimed. “I have never watched you do the do, or anyone for that matter.”  
“Amateur,” Tony scoffed, but he was smiling. Then Natasha wrapped a hand around his hardening cock and he groaned softly.  
“I know you Clint. You’re a control freak, perfectionist. So right now you’re going to watch me give Tony head and tell us what to do. Then you’re going to eat me out while Tony sucks you off. Sound like a plan?”  
They both nodded emphatically.


	13. Chapter 13

When Steve brought Bucky back to the Tower, he went straight to the penthouse, hoping Tony was up and sober so he could remove the bombs that Bucky had confirmed were in his metal arm. Tony was indeed up. So were Clint and Natasha, who wasn’t wearing a shirt, and Steve quickly averted his eyes from the pert breasts. She was wearing... boxers? Clint wore nothing but boxers as well, and Tony was in only a short silk robe, but Steve prayed there was something under it.   
“Cap!” Tony called out. “And Hobo! Come get coffee.”  
“Tony, we need you to help Bucky. There’s a bomb in his arm.” The three in front of him were significantly less impressed by this than he thought the situation warranted.   
“Sorry, Cap,” Clint was... giggling? “You are no longer the Man with a Plan. Nat gets that title now.”  
“Um, what?” Steve was very confused, but Tony reappeared from under the sink, (when had he gone down there?) with a tool kit which he sat on the kitchen counter.   
“Over here, Hobo-boy,” he patted one of the stools and Bucky took a seat. Tony pulled out something and ran it over the metal arm until he found what he was looking for (Is that an x-ray?) “Ah ha! Yeah this bomb is a piece of shit, Steve. They must’ve put it in there like ages ago because it’s literally in pieces. No harm to anyone.” He grabbed Bucky’s hand and shook until they could hear a rattling sound coming from his shoulder. “Come to my workshop at noon and I’ll pulled the pieces out of there for you. Now both of you go away so I can enjoy bacon and shower orgasms.”  
“Shower?” Natasha asked, a gleam in her eyes. “You wanna see how flexible Clint is?”  
“Hey!” Clint yelped.  
Bucky took Steve’s hand and dragged him back to the elevator.  
“Are they-?” Steve asked as the doors closed.  
“You always were kinda thick when it came to sex,” Bucky shook his head.   
“But there’s three of them?”  
“What, you wanna try it?” Bucky asked wryly.  
Steve made a strangled noise as the elevator opened on his floor, without him directing it to, and they stepped out.  
“Now, you gonna show me a shower big enough for three people, or am I gonna keep smelling like a sewer?”


	14. Chapter 14

After the fall of SHIELD, Tony made sure to collect every piece of relevant information from Natasha’s info dump. There was a lot, so it wasn’t until they received a call that they realized who the new director of the much smaller, more covert SHIELD was.  
“Incoming!” Darcy called out and Tony immediately slipped under his desk, out of sight. Darcy activated the video conference.  
“Oh! Agent Ipo-Thief. I thought you were dead.”  
Tony’s eyes went wide. Coulson? Alive?  
“Miss Lewis,” That was definitely Agent’s voice. “Where is Tony Stark? Why are you on his personal line?”  
“I’m sorry, Mister Stark is out right now; may I take a message?” Tony could practically hear her fluttering her eyelashes ridiculously.  
“This is all above your clearance level.”  
“I’m afraid it isn’t,” Darcy said. “See, no SHIELD = No Darcy Watchlist. Means I can do whatever I want, including spending the last week sorting through all your files, you know the ones all over the internet. JARVIS and I have been putting together our own watchlist. Hydra goons versus not Hydra goons. Did you know Stark Industries has gone on a hiring spree recently? We even got Agent - oh, I mean Miss Hill on our side. She makes a cutthroat minion, you know, of wait, she was your boss, sorry.”  
There were a lot of moments Tony was proud of when it came to Darcy, but this made the top 5 easily.  
“Darcy Lewis. I know Stark is most likely hiding under his desk in the hope that I won’t notice him. Put him on the phone now.”  
“And I know you’re full of bullshit, Agent. You know how I know? Cause we’re connected!” And she hung up, laughing. Tony crawled out of hiding and draped himself over Darcy.  
“You’re my favorite daughter, you know that?”  
“I better be. I’m your only daughter. Now are you going to emerge from hiding and confront the literal ex-Russian brainwashed assassin in the room?”  
“Steve can deal with him,” Tony sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t blame him for what he did, after all it wasn’t him who did it, not really, and if I talk to him about it now it’s just going to bring up more guilt for the dude.”  
“Or it could help him forgive himself, knowing you don’t blame him.”  
“Maybe,” he allowed. “I’m going to find food.”  
“Yeah, right,” Darcy snorted. “If you call it that.”  
“Hey, what?”  
“You’re actually going to go find Clint or Nat and let them distract you with sex in inappropriate places so you can say you lost track of time and Barnes is probably sleeping by then. Not that the man sleeps. This place is like the Home for Wayward PTSD.”  
“Ew, don’t talk about the sex,” Tony whined, waving his hands around, face twisted in mock disgust. “Not my little girl!”  
“You mean your MIni-Me? I’m living up to the name, Senior Stark.”  
“Oh god, no, the images! Get hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some iodine!”  
Darcy rolled her eyes and shoved Tony out the door. “Begone, Creature!”  
Tony made himself scarce. When Darcy got like that it meant she was working on something he wasn’t supposed to know about, which meant he had two choices. Make JARVIS tell him what it was, or wait until someone was inevitably electrocuted. He shrugged.  
“Jarv, let me know when she gets shocky.”  
“Of course, Sir. Do you wish to know before Miss Stark hurts someone or after?”  
“After, Jarv. Plausible deniability after all.”  
“Very true.”


	15. Chapter 15

Tony found Clint in the urban archery range, which meant he was hiding in one of the sniper nests brooding.  
“Sup, Katniss?” Tony asked as he reached the top of the rope ladder and clambered into a spot next to the archer.  
“It’s the anniversary.”  
“I know.”  
“Nat wants to visit Phil’s grave.”  
“I know.”  
“I can’t go. It’s my fault he’s dead.”  
“Bullshit.”  
“I know what you’re gonna say. It’s Loki’s fault - “  
“It’s nobody’s faulty. Agent ain’t dead,” Tony said bluntly.  
“What?” Clint turned to stare at him, mouth pressed in a grim line. “You better not be fucking with me.”  
“He just called me, down in the lab, not ten minutes ago. I was as surprised as you, so I may have let Darcy deal with him.”  
“Since when were you that malicious to Phil?”  
“Since he pretended to be dead and hurt you and Nat,” Tony’s voice was hard. “That was a stupid move, and he doesn’t deserve my goodwill. You forget, I saw what shape you were in when you came here. Nat too, though she tried to hide it.”  
“You saw through all her masks, huh?”  
“And yours. I’ve been wearing a mask my entire life, since I realized I was supposed to love my father; it wasn’t hard to spot them on you two. Are you still having nightmares?”  
“Are you?”  
“Cute. I’ll take that as a yes. Are they about Loki or before?”  
“After,” Clint admitted, examining his hands. “I saw them drag your body out of the ocean, and Nat... Hydra captured her, made her like the Soldier. I saw them come for your suits, and Darcy... she died fighting them. I’ve got so much to lose now, Tony, and it terrifies me.” His hands were shaking.  
“That’s completely normal. How do you think I felt when I learned that Darcy’s mom was pregnant?” Clint looked up; Tony rarely talked about how he came to have custody of Darcy. “I was a child really, worse than I am now by far. I wasn’t ready to be a father, and I was going to give her up for adoption like Theresa wanted, but then there were complications - she died giving life to Darcy, and when I held her, my little girl, I knew I couldn’t give her up to anyone. Every day for the past 25 years I’ve been terrified of losing her. Being a Stark is dangerous, so we made her a Lewis after her grandmother. But then she left home for college, and I was afraid of all the bad things that can happen to a college girl alone in the world. ANd now I have you and Natasha and even the other Avengers. What if General Ross gets it into his head to take Bruce away? What happens if one of you gets hurt in the field? I worry all the time. Then I think about what Papper told me that night when I first held Darcy.”  
“What’d she say?”  
“She said we’d survive it together. And I know if Ross comes after Bruce, I’ll sic so many lawyers on him, it’ll make him cry. If someone get’s hurt, we cover them, we bring them candy in Medical, we harass the doctors until they cry. Darcy... she does dangerous things all the time, so do we, but we have to recognize that we’re all capable adults and if someone get’s hurt, we need to be there for them instead of hiding up here.”  
“I only understood about half of that.”  
Tony shrugged. “Yeah, it didn’t turn out very comprehensive, did it?”  
“I got the gist, I think. Kick ass, moan later.”  
“Pretty much. And trust people to know what they can handle, I guess. I still have trouble taking showers alone.”  
“I’m paranoid about circuses.”  
“I still associate ballet with shooting a man in the head,” Natasha interrupted from below. “Hey, boys. Clint, Kate called. She had to relocate Lucky since he father turned out to be allergic to the hair on her.”  
“Which house is she at?”  
“Wednesday.”  
“Who are Kate and Lucky?” Tony asked.  
“Mini-me and the Dog,” Clint said.   
“She’s his apprentice, and Loucky is the mutt he picked up after it was hit by a car,” Natasha explained.  
“And what’s Wednesday?”  
“A safehouse. Looks like we’re going to Iowa.”


	16. Chapter 16

“Wednesday is a farm!”  
“Yes, I know.”  
“You named a farm after a day of the week!”  
“Yes, I know.”  
“Why?”  
“Why do I name my safehouses after days of the week?” Clint asked. Tony nodded. “I saw it on a tv show.”  
“That is considerably less awesome than I expected.”  
They walked from where the quinjet was hidden in a cluster of trees to the farmhouse, which looked like it had seen better days. Clint pushed the door open and found himself with an arrow pointed at his face.  
“Relax, grasshopper. Yoda has returned.”  
“You’re mixing your fandoms, idiot,” Kate Bishop said as she lowered the bow and relaxed the string. “Is that Tony Stark?”  
“I am indeed!” Tony grinned. “And who are you?”  
“Hawkeye the Second,” she grinned back, setting aside bow and arrow on the coffee table as they sat in the living room. “Kate Bishop.”  
“As in Kate Bishop, socialite of the Bishop Publishing family?”  
“Spot on.”  
“And you’re hiding out in Clint’s Iowa safehouse why?”  
“Dad was allergic to dogs and I didn’t want to explain why I was dog sitting for an assassin. Then SHIELD fell, and I started to get paranoid about the hotdog stand guy. Iowa was the furthest I could get away from my family.”  
“You could come to New York,” Tony suggested with a casual shrug, but Clint knew he was anything but casual about offers to live with the Avengers.  
“And deal with my folks in Manhattan? No thanks.”  
“He meant you could live in the Tower, Tweety,” Clint said. She shot him a look, but seemed thoughtful.  
“How long are you guys staying here?”  
“Just the night,” Clint said before Tony could answer. “Nat is waiting for us back at h- the Tower. Just came to get Pizza Dog and check on you really.”  
“So are you an Nat finally a thing?” she leered, but she ended up smiling too much.  
“Kinda. It took a little extra... help.” He caught himself, but not before Kate saw his glance at Tony, who was pretending the fireplace held the secrets to interdimensional travel.  
“No way! Seriously?” she looked at the both of them, mouth open. “You two and Nat?”  
“Yeah,” Clint shrugged.  
“Not gonna lie; that’s really hot.”  
Tony barked out a laugh. “I like you Little Bird. Now, direct me to the kitchen. I’m starving and I seriously doubt you can cook any better than Clint.”  
“Did he set the stove on fire again?”  
“Hey, I take offense to that!”  
“And almost burned down my bar trying to make a Bailey’s Comet.”  
“Typical,” Kate snorted. “At least I can make pasta without sending someone to the hospital.”  
Tony perked up. “Do tell.”  
“In my defense, the guy attacked me,” Clint interrupted.  
“And your response was to fling a pot of boiling water in his face.”  
“I was already holding it. It wouldn’t taken longer to just punch him.”  
“You blinded him.”  
“Self-defense.”  
“I think this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship, Little Bird,” Tony laughed, flinging his arm around her shoulders. Now, kitchen please.”  
As they ate a simple but admittedly very good dinner of linguine and alfredo sauce with leftover salmon in it, Kate had to admit, “I never expected the famous playboy Tony Stark to be able to cook.”  
“Just enough to keep myself and Darcy alive when Pepper wasn’t around. Sort of a survival mechanism.”  
“Darcy?”  
“My daughter. And know that if anyone gets wind of this from you, I will throw you off my Tower.”  
“Understood,” was all she could say as she tried to process his words. Since when had Tony Stark had a daughter? “You don’t expect me to babysit do you?”  
He broke out laughing at that, even Clint chuckled a little. “Oh god no. Clint we have to tell her that when we get back, we have to! Can you imagine her face?”  
“Older, then?” Kate asked Clint, because Tony was still giggling.   
“Yeah. You’re what, 25 this year? So she’s around your age.”  
“How does nobody know then? He’s Tony Stark!” she hissed.  
“I’ve been keeping State secrets since I was ten,” Tony broke in, a genuine smile still on his face. “Just because I decided to flaunt the Iron Man suit, doesn’t mean I blabbed about all the missiles I was building,” his smile fell. “I spent three months in a cave being tortured and I still didn’t build them the Jericho. What makes you think I’d tell anyone about my kid without proof they wouldn’t run to the press?”  
“What proof do you have that I won’t do it?”  
“Clint trusts you with the locations of several of his safehouses and apparently his dog, which on that note, where the hell is the dog?” he looked around, puzzled.  
“Probably in the barn. He likes the hay.”  
Kate pulled out a bottle of red wine for them and they sat around talking most of the evening, until it was full dark outside and a scratch came at the door. Clint let Pizza Dog in, and Tony was both a little surprised, but not surprised at all to see the dog only had three legs.  
“This is Lucky,” Clint said to the golden retriever. “Say hi to Tony, Lucky.” The dog came over , made the awkward hop onto the couch and sprawled over Tony’s lap with a pant and sweet doggy smile.  
“Ugh,” Tony said. “Dog hair.” But there was no heat to it and both Clint and Kate smiled indulgently.


	17. Chapter 17

Tony and Clint shut the door to Clint’s bedroom and threw the lock. Then they called Natasha and they tangled together on the bed, content to listen to the breath of their lover and feel the heat of their body as Natasha hummed a Russian lullaby to them.  
“Спи, младенец мой прекрасный,  
Баюшки-баю.  
Тихо смотрит месяц ясный  
В колыбель твою.  
Стану сказывать я сказки,  
Песенку спою;  
Ты ж дремли, закрывши глазки,  
Баюшки-баю.”  
“We’ll be home tomorrow, Nat,” Clint murmured.   
“You better be. I’m feeling a little deprived here, Clint. I want you.”  
“What about me?” Tony asked.  
“Of course. Who else can hold out long enough to finish what Clint starts?” She laughed a little, making them both smile. “Get some sleep. You’re not getting any tomorrow night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lullaby translation :   
> Sleep, my beautiful good boy,   
> Bayushki bayu*,   
> Quietly the moon is looking   
> Into your cradle.  
> I will tell you fairy tales   
> And sing you little songs,   
> But you must slumber, with your little eyes closed,   
> Bayushki bayu.
> 
> The whole song can be found here : http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=1044&c=157


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So you know when Darcy said she was an only child? Yeah… about that.

Kate ended up going with them, and sat in the back of the quinjet with Lucky in her lap, whimpering about the turbulence.   
“So what’s your daughter’s name?” she asked Tony.  
“Darcy Elizabeth Lewis.”  
“Wait seriously?”  
“Yeah,” he smirked.  
They landed and a young woman with far more generous curves than Kate and bright red lipstick greeted them.  
“Darcy said I should be here when you got back, Dad,” she said, opening her arms for a hug.  
“Emily!” he enveloped her in a hug, and spun them around. “When did you get back from Turkey? Why didn’t you call ahead?”  
“Today. I wanted to surprise you.”  
“Uh,” Clint interrupted. “Are you Darcy’s evil twin or something? Has Tony cloned you?”  
“You didn’t tell them?” Emily turned on Tony. “Dad, have you been playing games again?”  
“Maybe?” he shrugged. “Clint, Kate, meet Emily, Darcy’s sister.”  
“Twin sister,” Emily said and held her hand out to them, and Clint took it dazed. Kate smirked and leaned in as she shook her hand.  
“How much trouble has that caused you?”  
“More like how much trouble have we caused other people,” Emily said with a wink.  
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”  
“I think you’re right.”  
“Face it Tony, we’re all doomed,” Clint bemoaned.  
“Maybe you are,” Tony scoffed. “I’ve got twins who take after me. I’m immune.”  
From the grins on Emily and Kate’s faces, they took that as a challenge.


	19. Pranks pt1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> STEVE

Darcy, Emily, and Kate targeted Steve’s floor first. Kate took the virtual blueprint from Darcy in her workshop as Emily watched on. The archer pointed out several vents they could use to come and go stealthily since the geriatrics were never told of them (they had been installed with security mainly for Clint and reinforced so they wouldn’t creak under his weight).   
First Darcy lured Bucky out.  
“Hey Bucky, I’m going to the store for a few gallons of ice cream; wanna come and grab a cone with me?”  
“Sure, doll. Steve?”  
“No thanks, I’m just getting to the good part,” he held up his book: Storm Front by Jim Butcher.  
“Okay, later then.”  
Bucky and Darcy left, the elevator sliding shut behind them.  
Then Emily walked out into their living room, ipod on, and humming along.  
“Just a small town girl living in a lonely world!” she sang, dancing into the kitchenette. “She took the midnight train goin anywhere!”  
Steve looked up from his book.  
He stared as she took their last gallon of milk from the fridge and sashayed over to the elevator.   
“A singer in a smokey room. The smell of wine and cheap perfume!” She stepped in and the doors closed on, “It goes on and on and on and on!” The doors closed and she was gone.   
Steve’s stomach growled, and he blinked, stunned.  
He decided it must be a hallucination and promptly made himself a bowl of cereal (a mixing bowl) and ate it dry. There was the sound of crunching in the silent apartment and he spooned dry Reese's Puffs into his mouth, still looking a little shell shocked.


	20. Pranks pt2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NATASHA not really a prank, but I did feel like killing anyone and that's what happens when you prank Nat

Natasha was made aware of Emily upon Tony’s return to the Tower, but it still caused her to pause when she walked into her dance studio to find the twins in pointe shoes and skintight black clothes dancing to something loud and violent sounding.   
“There is no such thing as justice,  
All the best that we can hope for is revenge  
A hostile takeover,  
An absolute rebellion to the end.  
This is our battle cry  
Oh oh oh oh oh oh  
I’m giving you a head start,  
You’re going to need it,  
’Cause I fight like a girl  
I’ll get my revenge on the world or at least 49% of the people in it  
And if I end up with blood on my hands,  
Well, I know that you’ll understand,  
’Cause I fight like a girl.”  
She watched as they danced with the discipline of ballet but with the violent freedom of contemporary. They were perfectly in sync, like they had been dancing together all their lives, and Natasha wondered if Darcy had never danced around her simply because she was missing her perfect partner. They sank to the floor as the song drew to a close, breathing heavily but steadily.  
“What song was that?” Natasha asked from the doorway.  
“Fight Like A Girl by Emilie Autumn. We like her,” one of them said, and Natasha wasn’t sure which one it was as they turned to look at her, almost identical expressions on their faces.   
“You might like her too,” the other offered as they rose.  
“A little dark, especially in the Fight Like A Girl album - “  
“But it’s kinda a commentary on sexism -”  
“And insanity -”  
“Yeah, like the corruption of old asylums -”  
“You could join us sometime -”  
“Darcy says you do ballet -”  
“And it’s hard to find someone who can keep up with us -”  
“But I bet you might be able to.”  
Natasha didn’t have to consider long. “I’d love to.”


	21. Pranks pt3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BRUCE

Darcy argued against pranking Bruce at first, but finally conceded when she admitted how fun it could be. But she wanted to be the one to plan it. Emily and Kate agreed as long as the plan would include Nerf weapons of some kind, and that Kate got to play a more active role in pranking Bucky because she had had an awesome idea.  
Bruce was in his lab, which they all agreed would be too dangerous a zone for them to work in, so Darcy convinced him to join her for lunch at a bistro down the street. When he finally showed up, Bruce stopped outside the little patio area that was roped off and stared. To his left, Darcy sat at a little table for two with another place set. To his right Darcy sat at another table, his favorite tea waiting and and expectant look on her face. Both pretended to not notice the other.  
“Bruce! Glad you came!” #1 said, smiling.  
“Bruce! I’m over here!” #2 waved to catch his attention.  
“Bruce!”  
“Bruce!”  
“What are you doing just standing there?”  
“Your tea is getting cold, honey!”  
Kate was sitting at another table, recording the whole thing. You know, for posterity. And Tony. Suddenly Bruce seemed to make a choice.  
He turned around and almost ran away, partially convinced that he might want to check the chemicals he was working with for possible side effects. Like vivid hallucinations. He called Darcy later to ascertain if she had actually been at the bistro waiting.  
“Yeah, I was,” she said. And before he could ask which Darcy she’d been, she said, “I was inside at that window seat you like. Why didn’t you come?”  
“Uh, sorry, forgot,” he mumbled.  
“That’s okay, we can do lunch tomorrow.”  
“Can we maybe stay in the Tower this time?”  
“Sure, I don’t see why not.”


	22. Pranks pt 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BUCKY

They decided that outside of Clint and Nat, Bucky would be the hardest because of his spy training. he would be better able to pick up on differences in their body language and speech than the others, so they couldn’t be in the same space as him for too long for the prank to work. Kate was the one that figured it out and she and the twins were watching the Matrix again.  
“You two are the cat!” Kate exclaimed. Darcy and Emily shared a look and grinned.  
Later that evening, when Bucky was cleaning his knives in his room, the door open to the hallway, Darcy walked by.  
“Hey 2.0”  
A few seconds later Emily walked by in the same direction, mimicking her sister’s body language and tone of voice exactly.  
“Hey 2.0”  
Bucky’s head jerked up as she vanished down the hall, his eyes wide. Kate stepped into his doorway.  
“What was that?” he asked.  
“What?”  
“Like deja vu.”  
“Must be a glitch in the Matrix. You know how it goes. It happens when they change things.” She yawned and left.  
Bucky spent that night curled next to Steve in his bed (a California King according to Tony), and Kate counted it as a win when they were both over two hours late to their sparring session with Thor the next afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (AN I realize this seems cruel to Bucky, but in this fic, he’s completely recovered and just had an intense fear of sentient computers, JARVIS excluded, because evil sentient computers don’t feed him bacon every morning)


	23. Pranks pt5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THOR
> 
> This one kinda got away from me because apparently Loki wants to join the story as an actual character.

They expected Thor to be the easiest.   
Thor walked into the penthouse living room looking for Tony, and found two women who looked exactly like Darcy fighting each other.  
“I’m not the Zygon, you’re the Zygon!”  
“Prove it, bitch! I’m the real Darcy.”  
“If you’re the real Darcy, prove it! Ha! You can’t, can you?”  
Tony sat at the bar with a scotch, watching, unable to hide his amusement.  
“What is a Zygon, friend?” Thor asked him, edging around the fight.  
“Made up alien from an old tv show. They can change into a perfect replica memories and all.”  
“If it’s made up, why are they arguing about it?”  
“They each claim to be the real Darcy. Neither wants to not be.”  
“Lady Darcy is clearly the one on the right though, is she not?”  
Darcy and Emily froze and looked at him.  
“What?” they asked in sync.  
“I’m not sure who the other is, but she is no alien. Did you clone your daughter, Stark?”  
“You could say that,” Tony laughed. “Looks like the game is up, Mini-Mes.”  
Darcy looked at Emily who shrugged and held a hand out to Thor. “I’m Emily. Nice to meet you Thor. I hear you have an insane brother. I think I understand the feeling.”  
“I have never tried to conquer Earth!” Darcy said, insulted.  
“Neither did Loki,” Thor growled. “His mind was swayed by the scepter and the tesseract. He was not in control of himself.”  
“You’re saying he was mind-whammied like the others?” Darcy asked, pouring herself a drink.  
“Similar. Where Barton and Erik were utterly under control, the scepter took my brother’s anger and pain and twisted it to make him do things he would never have done before.”  
“So like frontal lobe damage.” Emily cut in. “It can cause problems with impulse control, judgement, and initiation. Like, before the injury slash scepter, Loki may have considered killing all those people and taking over Earth, but his frontal lobe would control that and he wouldn’t do it, but after...” she shrugged. “it was out of his control. Is that what you’re saying?”  
“Are you a physician?” Thor asked.  
“I took a bunch of psych classes in college. But no, I’m a hacktivist. I just spent like a year in Turkey trying to do something about the government controlling the internet. I’m just home for a little bit. I’m headed to North Korea next.”  
“And you’re taking everything I give you this time,” Tony said firmly. “It’s too dangerous there. I want you to have every advantage.”  
“Dangerous?” Thor asked.  
“It’s a dictatorship. They claim to be for the people, but only 4% have internet access, they keep threatening to nuke the US, they treat their leaders as gods, and their current leader is a moron who started his rule by purging those loyal to his father and executing his family members.” Darcy explained. Thor looked grim.  
“Are there many people like this on Midgard?”  
“Too many,” Darcy sighed. “But we try to make a difference, don’t we Em?”  
“Yep.”  
“Why am I not included in this?” Tony asked, feigning hurt.  
“Cause you’re too flashy,” Emily snorted. “Can you imagine me trying to infiltrate North Korea with an Iron Man suit case?”  
“It’s okay, Dad. I’ll keep you company when you blow things up and iritate Jane and Bruce.”  
“Thanks baby girl.”  
“So, Thor, If Loki was mostly innocent, why’s he in jail?” Darcy asked.  
Thor opened his mouth to respond, then closed it, brow furrowed.  
“That,” he said finally. “is a really good question. Excuse me Ladies.” And then he stepped out on to the balcony and flew away. They Starks all looked at each other and shrugged before Tony poured them all more scotch.


	24. Pranks pt6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CLINT

Clint had been on his guard for four days since meeting Emily. He knew Kate and he had gotten to know Darcy. He didn’t want to know what adding another Stark Spawn was going to do. So when Steve and Bruce and Bucky all seemed to develop spontaneous hallucinations, Clint got really wary. He checked every corner before turning in the vents, and he kept twitching whenever he heard someone behind him. He held no illusions he was safe because he slept in the same room as Tony, and had come to accept that only Natasha might be safe from the terrible three. Then somehow they made Thor DISAPPEAR. He had either fled the Tower or fallen victim to Darcy’s taser again and straight up vanished. Clint hoped he was just holed up on Jane’s suite and hadn’t run back to Asgard. Without an actual god around to stop them, Clint wasn’t sure who could stop the Starks and Kate from conquering the world. They all had brains and cunning and money and Natasha would probably just laugh as they did it.   
So when it did come, Clint found that he hadn’t prepared for everything.  
Darcy and Emily and Kate and Tony and Natasha were all sitting in his kitchenette with a massive chocolate cake on the island in front of them. It had a bunch of candles that were steadily burning down, and on it was written “Happy Birthday, Carnie Clint”  
“That’s a terrible nickname,” was the first thing he said.  
“I was going to go with Circus Freak,” Natasha said, “But someone has a hard on for alliteration.” Kate grinned harder.  
“Happy birthday Clint,” Darcy and Emily said. “We thought we’d get you the best gift ever!”  
“Which is?” he was immediately wary.  
“We are officially ending our prank war. You squirming for a few days was perfect enough - we didn’t want to ruin it,” Emily said.  
“The anticipation kill doesn’t it?” Darcy grinned. “So we got you anyway.”  
“How do I know this isn’t a trick?”  
“Paranoid much? I’m leavin the country tomorrow,” Emily said with a roll of her eyes. “I only came back to meet the people Dad’s so crazy about anyway.” Even Natasha seemed a little surprised about that though she hid it well. “And I’ve decided that you’re probably not going to let Dad burn down the Tower while I’m gone.”  
“I resent the implication that I’m going to let him do that,” Darcy said.  
“Do I have to mention when you let him do just that in Ohio at our 10th birthday party?”  
“I was 10! And you were there too. I could argue that you let him burn it down.”  
“I wasn’t the one encouraging him to cook in the hotel’s kitchen.”  
“It was only a same fire anyway.” Darcy pouted.   
“He burned down the hotel!”  
“It was a little hotel!”  
“Was being the key word.”  
“No one got hurt or arrested!”  
“And that is why I’m the responsible one. My standards are a little higher than ‘no one got hurt or arrested’.”  
Tony pulled a big knife out and began cutting the cake as the twins bickered.  
“They’re going to be at it for a little while,” he told Clint and Natasha. “Might as well dig in.”  
“They do this a lot?” Clint asked.  
“Lucky for us. If they got along all the time, we’d all be doomed.”  
“So I was right,” Clint pointed out. “They’re dangerous, especially when you add Kate to the mix.”  
“They’re volatile,” Tony agreed.  
Darcy and Emily turned on him, scowling, and snapped in sync, “You’re the one that burned down the hotel!”


	25. Pranks pt7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TONY

He thought the prank war was over. Emily was catching a flight at 2 am, and she’d be gone for who knew how long. He should have know better.   
When Tony woke up blearily after what felt like about two hours of sleep, he rolled over and wondered for a moment why his hands felt wet, then dismissed it, and slid a hand down Clint’s bare stomach to grope him.   
When Natasha returned from her early morning run in the gym downstairs, she burst out laughing. She folded her hands over her stomach and almost cackled until she was gasping for breath.  
Tony and Clint were smeared with a bunch of red and gold paint, which must have been oil paint to be so long lasting and not run everywhere. It appeared that he gold originated from Clint’s hands and the red from Tony’s and in the dark they’d gotten it all over, in their hair, and Tony’s beard, over their chests and cocks, and asses where they’d groped each other as they rutted together.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this story, Loki did not take Odin’s place. He was found out and thrown back in a cell to be tortured like in the myths.

Thor returned in a week with a scowl so dark it matched the roiling storm clouds he brought with him.  
“My brother is being tortured for crimes he had no say in,” his voice broke as he explained to Darcy. “You once told me you had studied politics for many years and hold a ‘degree?’ in them. My father refuses to listen to me because he believes me biased. Perhaps he will listen to a human who was the victim of Loki, not once, but twice in his madness. Will you come to Asgard to speak for Loki, Darcy Stark?”  
And to her credit, Darcy said yes.

Asgard was everything she had ever imagined and more. Darcy eyed the flying crafts that whizzed by with something akin to lust, the gleam of mechanical engineering in her eyes. Thor helped her onto a horse in front of him and Darcy swore the horse went far faster than a horse should have gone, because they reached the glittering palace in like five minutes, and were soon being escorted to the throne room by two very cross looking guards. They kept aiming looks at her like she was the dirt beneath their boots, and damn if Loki’s view of humans didn’t make more sense now.  
“Why have you brought yet another mortal to me?” Odin asked, both furious and exasperated at once. Darcy stepped forward, back straight.  
“I am here to demand the release of Loki.”  
The vein on Odin’s forehead bulged as he tried to figure out what part of that sentence made him angrier. “Demand?!” he finally decided.  
“Yes. You have wrongfully imprisoned a person not under your jurisdiction for crimes he had no choice in committing. On Earth we call this wrongful detainment of an unwilling accomplice. It was Earth that was wronged by Loki’s actions, and thus it is Earth that should pass his sentence, and we have found him not guilty by way of coercion.” (And hadn’t that argument with Fury been a treat.) “I demand you release him.”  
“Loki is of Asgard. I may punish him as I see fit.”  
“Incorrect. Loki is of Jotunheim. His is not your subject nor your son, as there are no binding documents giving you authority over him or even surrendering him to your care. What you did in taking Loki from his family is what we call kidnapping.”  
“I saved his life. He was abandoned to die!”  
“Was he? Do you know that? See I asked Thor to take me to the Jotuns first and they claim their first prince, a runt as Loki is, was left in the protection of a shrine where their priest would protect him from the Asgardian invasion. The way I see it, you kidnapped a prince from his loving family as you committed the genocide of his people then taught him his people were monsters and never told him of his heritage leading to the breakdown that led to his attempted suicide which led to his captivity at the hands of the Chitauri and the twisting of his mind. Everything Loki has done wrong can be laid at your feet. Now I demand you release him to my custody.”  
For once, the Allfather was speechless. Frigga stepped out of the shadows beside him and clapped slowly, once, twice, thrice, and said, “Take him, human, and may he find happiness with your people in a way he could not here.”  
“Frigga!” Odin protested.  
“I exercise my right as Allmother and Seer to release Loki into the care of Darcy Lewis,” she announced. “You have failed both our sons, Odin, and it is time that be corrected as best we can.”  
Thor strode to the cell Loki was being kept in, Darcy a half step behind him. Darcy’s eyes went wide and she let out a small gasp at the horror she saw. Loki was suspended by his wrists, which were wrapped with what looked like intestines, and when he lifted his head, his long hair moving away from his face, she saw his mouth had been sewn shut with something thick and black. Something like.. acid? dripped from the ceiling in a steady rhythm and hit him in the eyes, sizzling and burning away skin that grew back and was burned away again and again in quick succession.   
“I am taking you away from here,” Thor said and cut him down and pulled him away from the acid. From somewhere he pulled the tiny swiss army knife that Darcy had given him and in no time he was pulling the thick thread(?) from his brother’s lips.  
“Thor, brother,” Loki rasped before his still healing eyes closed and he went limp.  
Darcy followed them back to the Bifrost, throwing such a venomous glare at their escorts before hissing a harsh, “fuck off,” at them that they stopped suddenly and stayed still as Darcy guarded Thor’s back as he carried his brother.   
“For what it’s worth,” heimdall started, “I think he’ll be happier on Earth than he ever was here.”  
“What do you mean?” Thor asked.  
“Asgardians are very strict, very exclusive,” (“I think you mean racist,” Darcy muttered), “And humans for all their fighting as more diverse than we could ever claim to be.”  
“Damn right we are,” Darcy said, and they left.


	27. Chapter 27

Loki woke to the sensation of being watched. he did not open his eyes but a familiar voice said, “Welcome back to the land of the living” anyway.  
“Are you here to kill me?” Loki asked, finally opening his eyes.  
“That depends,” Clint Barton replied, eyes cold. “You’ll have to answer some questions first.”  
“20 questions? How many wrong answers puts an arrow through my eye?”  
“1 question, and one wrong answer.”  
“Begin,” Loki gestured for him to start.”  
“Who was controlling you?”  
Of all the possible questions, that was not one Loki had expected and it showed on his face for a brief moment before he smoothed his expression.  
“What makes you think I was being controlled?”  
“I’ve reviewed the footage SHIELD kept of you. Your eyes were blue up to the point Hulk smashed you. Thor claims you’re brilliant, a cunning genius, so why was your plan to conquer Earth such a terrible plan? Either it wasn’t your plan or someone was making you do it and you wanted to fail. If it wasn’t your plan you wouldn’t just come up with a better one unless someone was ensuring your compliance. I saw how the scepter affected the team when none of them was even touching it - it aggravated them to the extreme - you were holding on to it for ages so what did it do to your mind? Take your pick of reasons and answer my question.”  
“Why should I tell you? What difference will it make?”  
“I don’t blame you for what you did to me.” Loki was shocked again and he thought the archer was becoming quite good at that.  
“Why?”  
“Because you weren’t in control. I blame the person controlling you. Give me a name.”  
“You’ll never be able to beat him. He’s stronger than even Odin.”  
“Give me a name.”  
“What good will it do you!”  
“Give me a name,” Clint repeated, cold and calm, patient.  
“Thanos,” Loki finally said, finding he was still exhausted from healing himself and unwilling to fight the archer over it any longer.  
“Who is he?”  
“They call him the Mad Titan, and he once killed off half the universe in an attempt to woo Death. He escaped punishment for none could match him and now he means to collect the Infinity Stones and bring destruction to the universe. Every dead person is another gift to his beloved.”  
Clint was silent. Then he stood and left without another word, pulling himself into the vent near the ceiling with an impressive display of dexterity and strength, and Loki realized he hadn’t had a bow on him the entire time. Doubtless there were knives secreted on his person, like Loki prefered to do, but it put his threat of shooting Loki into perspective. Loki sat stunned for a moment that the man he had been sure would hate him more than any of his brother’s friends had come into his presence without his favored weapon to ask him a question instead of threaten him. It had been Loki who assumed violence would follow if he didn’t cooperate. Loki drew in a breath and it came easier, his ribs having healed themselves from when his torturers couldn’t resist an extra blow or three. Odin, who had once claimed to love him as a father, had authorized his torture and here was a man whom Loki had greatly wronged choosing to look past his own pain to accept Loki’s own. It was humbling though Loki would never admit it aloud. Perhaps he could indeed find peace here.


	28. Chapter 28

Darcy and Kate were having lunch together in the penthouse when they began to suspect something. Bruce and Steve walked off the elevator, heads close as they murmured but when they noticed the two women, they clammed up really fast, casting looks that could only be described as either guilty or suspicious as they gathered a pile of grilled cheese (Bruce cooked those while Steve stirred the soup) and retreated with about ten sandwiches and a mixing bowl of tomato soup. As the doors on the elevator closed, Steve dipped a whole sandwich into the mixing bowl and began eating, eyeing the women over the top of his grilled cheese with suspicion.  
Darcy looked at Kate.  
Kate looked at Darcy.  
“They’re planning something,” they agreed. 

The first attack came the next day as Darcy and Tony were working on data collection for her new taser. (They were stalking Jim the Intern who had groped Janet the Secretary yesterday). Suddenly as they entered the elevator to the penthouse, a bucket of slime, legit green slime, was dumped on their heads.  
“JARVIS!” Tony shouted.  
“Sorry, Sir, but my protocol prevents me from informing on participants of a legitimately declared prank war within the confines of this tower.”  
Tony glared at Darcy. “This is your fault.”  
“So what are we gonna do about it?”  
JARVIS kept tally.  
Thor was the first to lose when Natasha, Clint, Tony, and Bruce managed to get him all in one day with green hair dye in his conditioner, toothpaste icing on his pop tarts, glitter superglued to Mew-Mew, and a ‘gift’ of a puppy yellow lab that incidentally kept pooping and peeing in his bed. (Thor kept the puppy).  
Bruce was the next to fall out of the game when Steve managed to get bonus points on him by hiding all his tea in Darcy’s cupboard, and Bruce thought Darcy had done it long enough to replace all her coffee with decaf.  
Bucky managed to get bonus points by not being pranked for three days by virtue of people forgetting he was in the tower, and joining in by glitter bombing Jane and Thor as they slipped in a puddle of Elmer’s glue on their way out of the lab, which had the unpleasant side effect of Jane joining Kate, Dacy, and Tony’s team and powdering the inside of all his pants with itching powered (he went all Howling Commando, haha, get it?), which took Bucky out of the running.  
Remaining contestants: Tony, Darcy, Kate, Jane, Steve, Natasha, Clint.  
Clint and Natasha lost when Kate and Steve joined forces and pelted them with rice every time they came into view (Kate somehow bribed JARVIS into locking Clint and Natasha out of the vents, where she took over and followed them around) and the two spies gave up after three days simply to spot them wasting food and singing “Birdy and Spider sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”  
Tony and Steve found themselves being told by JARVIS they now were losing when one day they woke up handcuffed together on the roof (They were the handcuffs used on Loki so neither of them could break out) and were forced to be that way for a whole two days before they begged to be let free and forfeited the game.  
Then it was every woman for herself when Kate, Darcy, and Jane turned on each other. There was Jane’s stapler being encased in Jello, shaving cream barfing pillows in Kate’s room, a head in the fridge that freaked Darcy out (but only after she’d been awake 48 hours, so JARVIS counted it as half points), clear glue in the hand sanitizer bottle Kate always carried, swapped deodorant with butter (Bucky accidentally used the deodorant as butter which was not the intended effect but funny anyway), but Jane finally dropped out when suddenly her phone was getting 200 calls a day from people imitating a Wookie roar and then expecting money from her.  
So it was down to Kate and Darcy.  
There was cheese water impersonating orange juice, Darcy’s entire workshop covered in post it notes (Tony was pissed, it was his workshop too), Kate’s bow and arrows (and backups) wrapped in about twenty layers of plastic wrap, placed in a box, wrapped in about twenty layers of duct tape, placed in a bigger box, also wrapped in duct tape, placed in a box of metal and welded shut, and wrapped in wrapping paper for her birthday. Kate retaliated by dumping about a thousand jumbo packages of skittles in the workshop and letting the candy roll everywhere, (also pissing Tony off), to which Darcy responded by filling Kate’s personal bathroom with nothing but foam peanuts all the way up to the ceiling. It was when the whole of the penthouse was decorated with pictures of Nic Cage that JARVIS called a winner.  
Everyone was gathered in the penthouse, now free of Nic Cage, that JARVIS announced, “And the winner is Loki.”  
“Wait what?”  
Loki stepped forward from the elevator and tossed a balled up piece of paper into the group. Steve unfurled it to reveal Nic Cage, with the words scrawled under it reading, “You’ve been Loki’d, losers.”  
“The numbers are as follows,” JARVIS said, “Thor, 36, Bruce, 58, Bucky, 79, Clint, 88, Natasha, 120, Steve, 157, Sir, 178, Jane, 211, Kate, 300, Darcy 302, Loki, 500.”  
There was outrage.  
“Did any one of you ever prank Loki?” JARVIS asked. There was silence. “By virtue of never been pranked, Loki wins. Points were taken away for every successful prank on the person.”  
“Whatever. Someone order some cake!” Tony called out. “I want to shove it in Loki’s face to celebrate!”  
Behind everyone’s backs, Darcy and Loki fist bump.


	29. How Darcy met Loki

Loki ventured from his room very rarely, mostly at night when no one was around to stare at him. Clint came to see him occasionally, and had once brought Natasha, who he liked quite a lot. Even mind controlled, she should not have had the cunning to beat him, yet she had proven herself worthy of his respect, using his own expectations of humanity and women against him. Yeah, Loki liked her. And Clint was proven to have a dry wit that Loki appreciated. But other than the spies and his brother, he had not spoken with any of the Avengers.  
So when a young woman with dark hair and luscious curves stumbled into the kitchen at 3 in the morning while he was struggling with the coffee maker, he was a little surprised.  
“Oh, hey Lokes. How’s rehab?” she muttered.  
“Who are you?”  
“Darcy,” she held a hand out but Loki ignored it. “I live down the hall from you. You’re in my sister’s room right now.”   
“I had wondered,” he said dryly. “There is an abundance of stuffed snakes and colourful paintings. I couldn’t make it out.”  
“Emily paints her own stuff. Dad hates it cause he would buy her any painting in the world, but she likes doing her own better. Though, secretly he’s proud of her.”  
“Your father is...?”  
“Tony Stark. You know, the guy you threw out a window upstairs.” He paled. Interesting, Darcy thought. She reached around him to fiddle with the coffee maker. “Hey it’s all cool. You weren’t in control, right?”  
“Does everyone know?” he asked tightly.  
“Everyone who needs to, meaning everyone who you’ll be living with for the foreseeable future.”  
“And do they hate me? Do they fear me? Or do they pity me?” he sneered.  
“It’s not like most of the people here don’t have some sort of similar experience you know. Yeah I guess they sympathize with you. We kinda wish you’d come out of your room more, but everyone deals with trauma differently, you know? Ha, there,” she said and the coffee maker began to chug out dark liquid.  
“Even the monster?”  
“Hulk? He’s not a monster. But when he’s little and not green you should call him Bruce. And if you call him a monster to his face I will punch you in yours. Here have some coffee.”  
“Why are you here now? None are ever up when I come here.”  
“Dad convinced me to get some sleep, go to bed early, that kind of thing. Not that it stops him from staying up himself. You know, you guys could start a club.”  
“Club?”  
“Society whatever, exclusive to people who’ve been traumatized by powerful people. You could call it Club of Manipulation Survivors or something less lame, god that’s an awful name,” she rambled and Loki smirked. He was starting to like her.  
“Well tell the others that this Club shall meet tomorrow night at 2 for the first time.” And he filled his cup again and strode away.


	30. Club of mentally fucked up dysfunctional people

Loki had expected Darcy to wander away to sleep and forget all about their conversation. He did not expect a group of people to be waiting for him the next night with cups of coffee already in their hands.  
“Hey, can I be president of the club?” Tony Stark asked.  
“I should be president,” a man with a metal arm argued. “Hi, I’m Bucky. I was a brainwashed assassin for 70 years.”  
“I’m Natasha, I was taken as a child and brainwashed by the Red Room to kill people.”  
“I’m Clint. I was mind controlled by a mind controlled alien. But before than my teacher manipulated me into killing people for him.”  
“I’m Tony and I probably should be here, but I was manipulated by my surrogate father Obie while he sold my weapons to terrorists and then tried to have me killed then tried to kill me himself twice.”  
“I think you qualify,” Loki told him. “I grew up being taught to hate my own race while being lied to about my true parentage, then when I was hanging off the end of the Bifrost asking for acceptance Odin told me ‘no’ so I tried to kill myself but dropped into the territory of Thanos and was tortured until I agreed to conquer Earth for the Chitauri so Thanos could start a war with the Nine Realms and he gave me the staff which influenced my mind so I couldn’t stop myself.”  
There was a brief silence before Tony said, “Who wants to watch a movie and try to get drunk?”  
Everyone raised their hands.


	31. How Darcy Convinced Them To Go To The Club Meeting

Tony was first on Darcy’s list.  
“There will be alcohol.”  
“But feelingsssss, Darcy!”  
“And Star Trek.”  
“Feeeeeeeeelinnnnnnngsssssss.”  
“Or you could go to support Natasha and Clint in getting drunk and watching Netflix.”  
Tony eyed her suspiciously. “Fine.”

Bucky was next.  
“There will be alcohol.”  
“Can’t get drunk anymore, Doll.”  
“But it will be the fruity kind with lots of sugar.”  
“Will I have to talk about feelings?”  
“There will be Star Trek.”  
“Feelings?”  
“The Original Series.”  
“Okay.”

Then came Clint.  
“There will be alcohol.”  
“I don’t drink.”  
“Lies. There will be fruity drinks with little umbrellas in them.”  
“I don’t like little umbrellas.”  
“There will be Star Trek.”  
“I don’t watch TV.”  
“Natasha will be there. Support her and Tony.”  
“Fine, okay, you win.”

Last was Natasha.  
“There will be -”  
“No.”  
“But what about -”  
“No.”  
“Why?”  
“I don’t talk about that time. Ever.”  
“Maybe that’s why it’s taken you so long to open up. You have a family now, Nat, you can’t just shut them out when you’re having problems.”  
“Why should I go?”  
“Because not a single person in that room will judge you for what you’ve done. Because every one of them has gone through something similar and they’ll be trusting you not to judge them. Because they’re your family and as much as you need them, they need you too. Because it might help to bond with people you know understand even if they never ask you to talk about it. Because you need to know you aren’t alone anymore.”  
“...Okay.”


	32. Not A Chapter Sorry

Hey all. I'm currently abroad in London so there will likely not be any updates, or at least very rarely, for the next 6 weeks. When I get back into writing this story I will replace this notice with a new chapter.

Cheers!


	33. I'm back with baby!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I was gone for so long, friends! So much happened over the summer, but hopefully I'll be able to update more regularly now.
> 
> Also, I'm not too fond of previous "baby" part so I made this. Now that I think about it - did I post previous baby part that I wrote?

“Tony, Clint...”  
“Yeah?”  
“I’m pregnant.”  
Both men stared up at their red haired partner in shock. After a moment, Clint said, “Seriously?” and Tony asked, “I thought you couldn’t be?”  
“Well I am, God knows how that happened,” Natasha sat on the couch between them. “And the tests I took seemed pretty conclusive.”  
“What do you want to do?” Tony asked gently.  
“Do you guys want to keep it? We don’t even know which of you is the father.”  
“This is completely up to you, Nat,” Clint said. “It’s your body and our opinions shouldn’t have any bearing on your decision.”  
“And I don’t think either of us need to know who the father is to love a child we all created together, right?” Tony said.  
“Right,” Clint agreed.  
Natasha teared up and sort of crumpled in on herself, crying. “I’m keeping it! This is all I’ve wanted since SHIELD broke my programming, and I never thought I would get it.”  
Both her partners wrapped their arms around her.  
“I’ll call Pepper and ask her to find the best, most discreet doctor she can,” Tony said.  
“We can use the room next to Tony’s for the nursery,” Clint suggested with a smile.  
“How do I get both of you on the birth certificate?” Natasha asked with a sniffle, but she was smiling too.  
“Dunno, but I’ve got some of the best lawyers on payroll,” Tony told her. “If they can’t figure it out, they’re all fired.”


	34. Way to steal, Thunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So nothing I write goes to plan. Sorry. I should probably admit I don't go into any of my fics with an actual plan or plot and it just kinda happens. Mostly during finals, but I digress. I'm not sure how long this fic is going to be so thanks all who will stick with me until the (very convoluted I'm sure) ending.

They trio intended to tell the rest of their friends at lunch the next day, but before Natasha could speak, Loki pulled away from his coffee and asked, “Is this about the gift I gave you?”  
“You what?” Natasha barked, startled.  
“You are with child, yes?”  
“Yes?”  
The others all started talking at once until Clint stuck his fingers in his mouth a whistled. They shut up. “Loki, explain,” he said.  
“Well I became quite adept as fertility and birthing magics when my own children were still in the womb, and when you told us about your sterilization at our last Club meeting, I decided it would be a good gift if I were to help you.”  
Natasha sat back in her chair with a small thump, staring at Loki. “I’m not sure if I should punch you or hug you,” she admitted. “But either way, thank you, Loki. You don’t know how much this gift means to me.”  
“Wait, how many kids do you have, Loki?” Tony asked suddenly, totally ruining the mood btw.   
“Four, and all of them lost to me.” He stood and abruptly left. All eyes turned to Thor.  
“Centuries ago, there was a prophecy that foretold Loki’s children bringing about the fall of Asgard and the end of all things, Ragnarok. So Odin banished Hela to the land of the dead, Jormungand was sent to an ocean far away in another realm, and Odin never told Loki or me where, Fenrir was bound in chains in a cave, wild with madness, and Sleipnir... he is kept in Asgard’s stables, to be ridden by only Odin.”  
There was silence.  
Tony broke it, asking, “Is Sleipnir a horse then?”  
“Yes, with eight legs. He was born when Loki shifted into a mare to lure away another horse from his task and so win a bet in Asgard’s name. And while Fenrir and Jormungand can both take the shape of people, they are trapped now in the forms of a wolf and serpent.”  
“What about Hela?” Natasha asked.  
“She was born half alive, half dead, which is why Odin thought it best to send her to the land of the dead. From what I heard, and this is only rumour, she soon sat on the throne, ruling over the people who couldn’t make it to Valhalla. The prophecy foretold that if Loki makes it to Hel, his daughter will raise him an army of the dead and they will sail forth across the World Tree in a ship made of cut nails to free Loki’s other children and bring death to all Asgardians.”  
“JARVIS make note - do not let Loki die,” Tony said.  
“Nails, really?” Clint asked. He frowned at Darcy, who was sleeping at the table. “How does she not care about this?”  
“I think Darcy researched all this after she met Thor the first time,” Bruce shrugged. “She knows it all.”  
“That was a year ago; who learns all there is to know about Norse myth in a year?” Steve asked. He was still looking a little ill at the thought of a ship made of nail clippings. Even Natasha looked a little green, and it was far too early for morning sickness.  
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Thor said looking at his phone. “Jane has been locked in her lab for ten hours without a meal.” He stood and departed.  
That was unexpected and really heavy,” Tony mentioned absently. “I believe we three have baby stuff to get started on.” He and Clint took Natasha’s hands and were almost out the door when Steve called after them.  
“It doesn’t count as baby making if she’s already got a bun in the oven!”  
They all flipped him off, and Darcy snorted.  
“I thought you were asleep,” Steve said, and she lifted her head to reveal that she’d been playing Bejeweled on her phone the whole time.  
“After baby new it got boring,” she explained.  
“Ragnarok is boring?”  
“Seriously? You guys face potential world-ending on a weekly basis. What’s one more? Besides if you ask me, Odin brought Ragnarok on himself by doing the one thing that would piss Loki off enough to want to destroy all of Asgard.”  
“Hmm, good point.”  
“Hey, Steve, how far down that list are you?”  
“I just watched Mean Girls last night and I think Blues Brothers was next on the list.”  
“We should watch that one together. I remember you really liked Carrie Fisher in Star Wars, so you’ll get a kick out of this one.”  
“Should we invite Loki? He’s probably brooding in his room right now.”  
“Emily’s room, if you want to get technical. JARVIS is he cuddling her snake plushies?”  
“Yes, Miss.”  
“Ask him if he wants to watch the greatest car chase of all time with rampant destruction of police property.”  
There was a pause, then, “He’s on his way, Miss.”


	35. Loki Likes Anime

Loki showed up to watch the Blues Brothers with one of Emily’s snake plushies wrapped around his shoulders. It was about eight feet long and a vibrant purple. He joined Darcy and Steve on the couch in the penthouse.  
“What was this about the best car chase of all time?” He asked Darcy.  
“I don’t know how many movies you’ve seen since you got here -”  
“Thor and Jane have introduced me to Netflix; I have seen many movies and I am currently on season 6 of Criminal Minds.”  
“That’s a great show,” Darcy agreed. “This movie is a comedy, and has hands down the best car chase in any movie ever.”  
“Then let us watch this car chase.”  
Darcy grinned. “JARVIS please put on the movie.”  
“Yes, Miss.”  
As the movie progressed, Loki’s shoulders slowly relaxed, and a small smile flitted across his mouth, eventually becoming a full on grin when Carrie Fisher blows up the Blues Brothers’ apartment building and he kept the smile for the rest of the movie, making Darcy chalk this one up to an uber win.  
“That was very very good,” Steve said as the credits rolled. Loki nodded in agreement.  
“You two up for watching something else?” Darcy asked.  
“Unless Doom or someone attacks today, I’m free all day,” Steve said.  
“I usually sleep most of the day, but I’m not tired right now,” Loki shrugged, clinging to the purple snake.  
“Hmm, JARVIS how about some anime?”  
“Is that the Japanese stuff?” Steve asked.  
“Yeah. I think Sword Art Online is a good place to start. Jarv, bring up episode 1 with English subtitles.”’  
“An excellent choice, Miss,” the AI said approvingly.  
When the first episode ended, Loki shouted, “That’s it?! Play the next one!”  
“You heard the man, Jarv,” Darcy smirked. Steve seemed stunned.  
“Is that possible?” He asked. “To go in a game like that?”  
“Virtual reality? Sure it is. Dad’s been working on developing full-dive technology ever since he saw this anime and he’s already got a version of goggles tech on the market. It’s no where near full-dive, but people are eating it up. I think now that dad has access to Bruce’s brain, full-dive is much closer to being a reality.”  
“I’d like to try that,” Steve admitted. “The technology now is surpassing some of the science-fiction I used to read when I was sick in bed all the time. It’s amazing.”  
“Tell you what, I’ll get dad to bring down units for all of us and we can play one of the game’s I developed with some SI R&D interns.”  
“Sounds great.”  
“Shush,” Loki hissed. “It’s starting.”


	36. Phil Comes Calling

Phil Coulson knew the game was up. Darcy Lewis knew he was alive, and her inability to keep her mouth shut inevitably meant all the Avengers knew too, so he gave up hiding, blatantly ignored Fury’s order that he stay hidden and resting, and traveled to see the Avengers, and possibly get his trading cards back (Fury said Stark had them). When he stepped off the elevator in the penthouse around dinner time, the very last thing he expected to see was Loki, cuddled up against Darcy, hugging a large purple plushie, and starting with rapt attention at the anime playing on the big screen TV.  
“Oh, hey Ipod-Thief,” Darcy looked over her shoulder and greeted him.  
“Who’s Ipod-Thief?” And then Steve Rogers (CAPTAIN AMERICA) looked around Loki’s other shoulder and stared. For a moment there was silence as Lelouch died spectacularly on screen.  
“What is going on here?” Coulson finally squeaked out. “Why is, is, is Loki-!!”  
“I’m in therapy,” Loki told him without taking his eyes off the TV. “I started a club too.”  
“Wind this back a moment,” Steve interrupted angrily. “Since when were you alive?”  
“He might be a skrull,” Loki suggested.  
“I’m not a damn alien! I’ve been alive since they revived me after coding for five minutes. Fury explained to me that he didn’t tell you, but Lewis here answered Stark’s phone and I thought you all knew now.”  
“Hey!” Darcy protested. “That’s really insulting. I can keep a secret.”  
“I doubt that,” Coulson told her. “Now please tell me why you’re cuddling a mass murderer and national icon and forcing them to watch that shit.”  
“It’s not shit!” All three of them shouted, and Coulson realized suddenly that he wasn’t helping his case by losing his temper.  
“Fine, it’s not shit,” he resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose. “Can someone tell me where Stark is?”  
“JARVIS, Agent Agent wants to see Tony,” Darcy scowled. “Should we let him?”  
“No, Miss. Sir is currently occupied with Spies 1 and 2.”  
“Like Code Eek occupied?”  
“No, Code Freak occupied, Miss.”  
“I see. No, Coulson you may not see Tony.”  
“Why are you calling him Tony?” Coulson asked.  
“Yeah why?” Steve added, confused, then it dawned on him “Oooh!” He pointed at Coulson, and Darcy nodded. “Okay.”  
“Would someone please tell me what’s going on here?”  
“What’ll you give me if I do?” Darcy asked. Coulson dipped a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out an ipod classic in a bright red and gold case - Iron Man themed.  
“Tell me?” Coulson asked.  
“Hand it over first, then I will,” Darcy told him, tone brokering no argument.  
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Coulson muttered as he handed the intern her ipod. He’d brought it to give it back to her anyway, but he never thought he’d have to use it to bargain for information that everyone seemed privy to except him. Darcy stuck the ipod down the front of her shirt, between her breasts, and Coulson grimaced. No way was he touching Darcy’s breasts and she knew it by the way she smirked.  
“Here Lokes,” she handed the god the remote and he immediately turned the subtitles off. If Thor told the truth, the Allspeak meant he didn’t need them. Steve made a sound of protest, but he was clearly more interested in the drama unfolding on the other side of the couch.  
“Tell me what’s going on,” Coulson said with a belated, “Please.”  
“Tony Stark is my father.” She didn’t even care when his mouth fell open. “He’s sleeping with your Spies. Anything more you’ll have to ask them about. Get lost Ipod-Thief.”  
Behind him the elevator doors opened and he stepped in. JARVIS closed them behind him and by the minute shift he felt that he was headed up. Apparently Stark was no longer busy.  
“Why is this my life?” He breathed in what was definitely not a groan. Stark had sired Darcy - it made sense in an odd twisted way. They seemed to be the only two people who could make him break his cool exterior out of sheer irritation. Clint and Natasha made him worry, but they never succeeded in breaking his facade out of sheer annoyance. Were they really sleeping with Stark? If he was being cruel, Coulson would have suggested that Stark had taken advantage of them in their grief, but the rational side of him knew better. He knew his people and they were fully capable of handling their grief. Not even Stark would have wormed his way into their beds if they hadn’t wanted him there. He grimaced, queasy at the thought of Stark fucking his agents, and quickly shoved the image aside as the elevator stopped.  
He stepped into the top floor of the penthouse where he knew Stark kept his bedroom, a No-Explosives Lab, and his private kitchen. It was cozier than he expected, with rich aqua walls and the occasional accent wall in a blue so deep it was almost black, spotted with what he realized were accurate depictions of constellations.  
Stark sat at the kitchen island with Clint and Natasha, the men in their boxers and Natasha in a silky red and gold dressing gown. Coulson flinched. He knew what Natasha looked like - the catsuit made it hard to miss - and he’d had to strip her to stitch up wounds before. He also knew that Natasha hadn’t been pudgy in her life ever. Which left one very disturbing conclusion to the round stomach her noticed under her robe. So...  
“Which one of you got Natasha pregnant?” Then they all, all three of them, rolled their eyes with the exact same expression of fond exasperation and Coulson knew, suddenly and clearly, that this was going to be okay.  
“Haven’t a clue,” Natasha answered him. “We don’t keep track really, and since none of us knew it was possible for me to conceive we stopped using condoms when we were all tested and clean. They’re both going on the birth certificate though.”  
“I see. Stark?”  
“Yeah?” He perked up, peering blearily over his coffee at Coulson.  
“Since you’re now part of this family, you may as well call me Phil.”  
“Sure thing Agent.” Phil rolled his eyes. “But that means you have to call me Tony. Being called Stark like that makes me think of my father, which, you know, I’d rather not if I can help it.”  
“Very well Tony.”   
“You need somewhere to stay, Agent? - get away from SHIELD, away from Fury, get your trading cards back?”  
“You have them?” Phil asked eagerly.  
“Well, yes and no. Yours got covered in blood - Fury’s fault B-T-Dubs. But I dug out my dad’s collection of Captain America shit for Steve so he could get his sketchbooks back and I found a complete collection of those trading cards. Figured I’d give them to you after I found out you’re alive instead of dumping them on your grave.”  
“I have a grave?”  
“We all went to the funeral,” Clint nodded, glaring at Phil.   
“That is all kinds of fucked up,” Phil frowned. “Nick and I will have to have a conversation soon.”  
They all seemed delighted at that.  
“JARVIS, Agent looks tired, show him to his room on the Super Spy floor.”  
“I have a room?”  
“You do,” Natasha smiled. “You can repaint the walls on that floor since Clint and I are moving out soon. Not sure you’d like the colors - you always did prefer blue.”  
Phil cast an envious eye around Sta- Tony’s floor.  
“It’s called Arc Blue,” Tony told him suddenly. “Custom paint job, but I can get them to mix you some of it if you want.”  
“I’d appreciate that,” Phil smiled. “And I think I will take you up on that room - I’m exhausted. Today has been weird.”  
“No weirder than hearing you're back from the dead,” Clint muttered.  
“Breakfast convenes on the penthouse living floor. There’s a second, bigger, kitchen there and Steve and Thor have taken to baking waffles every morning.”  
“Tony?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Thank you.” And he didn’t just mean for the food and the room. He could see how relaxed Clint and Natasha were and it thrilled him. They allowed themselves so little down time, so little freedom that it was refreshing to see them so content and calm. By the way Tony's eyes softened as he said ‘you’re welcome’, the inventor understood what Phil meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Code Eek: Naked Fun Times
> 
> Code Freak: Sad Feely Times


	37. When Steve Apologized For Being A Sleep Deprived Dick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I realized I never wrote how Steve and Tony reconciled. Here it is.

After being escorted to his room and sleeping a full 24 hours, Steve realized what a dick he’d been and flushed red in shame. How was he supposed to apologized to Stark when the last try had gone so wrong. He’d just wanted to say sorry for the horrible things he’d said to Stark during the Loki Incident, and he’d made it even worse.  
“Sir likes waffles,” JARVIS said suddenly, making Steve jump violently.  
“What?”  
“The kitchen on the penthouse living floor is free.”  
“It is?”  
“Sir likes waffles,” the AI said slowly as if speaking to a child.  
“Oh! Okay. Um, does he have ingredients?”  
“I make sure all kitchens are stocked regularly,” JARVIS confirmed. “Your elevator awaits, Captain.”  
Steve didn’t like to brag, but he was very good at cooking and baking. Had to be to make the most of their food rations and meager funds back when he was tiny and asthmatic. So JARVIS directed him to the pantry and pulled up a recipe off the internet for Steve to read. The result was a massive pile of waffles that even a super soldier would have trouble polishing off. The next thing he knew, Stark was staring at him from the bottom of the stairs that led upstairs and Steve was shamefaced again.  
“WHat’s this about then?” Stark asked.  
“It’s me trying to apologize,’ Steve squared his shoulders, determined to do it right this time. “When we met I was wrong to say the things I did, and I was wrong to think you were as selfish as I thought. If I hadn’t been so pigheaded, you may not have almost died for us. And when you opened your home to me, I didn’t thank you instead I was horribly out of line, and no matter how tired I was, I was still a dick and it’s inexcusable. I’m sorry, Stark.”  
“You’re not forgiven.” Steve’s heart sank. “Because there’s nothing to forgive. You were working on bad information and were likely still in shock from waking up in the 21st century. If you had been otherwise, I’ve no doubt you would’ve acted differently.”  
“But-”  
“Don’t argue with a good thing, Steve. Didn’t your mama teach you anything? Also, call me Tony.”  
“Okay, thank you Tony. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’ll take it if you’re willing to give it.”  
“I said there’s nothing to-”  
“Do you want the waffles or not, Tony?”  
“I do.”  
“Then shut up and eat.” Steve wasn’t sure how far he was pushing Tony’s forgiveness, but the man just sat across from him and loaded a plate up, dumping an obscene amount of natural maple syrup on his booty.  
“Shall I call the others?” JARVIS asked.  
“Sure,” Tony told him then turned to Steve, “we’re going to need a lot more waffles.”


	38. Bucky and Tony Discuss Pizza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place just after Bucky moves in.

Bucky was greatly enjoying Avengers Tower. Stark had shown him to his room on Steve’s floor.   
“Every residential floor is Hulk Grade,” Stark explained as if that made any sense. “You’re allowed to go anywhere except leaving the residential floors. You won’t be able to get on someone’s private floor unless they give you access, so don’t worry about that.”  
“Okay.”  
“Now, how do you feel about pizza?”  
“Real pizza or that weird shit they deliver now?”  
“I feel like I should be offended,” Stark said easily, not offended at all. “There’s this tiny little Italian joint in Brooklyn that hasn’t changed the recipe in like 100 years or something. They don’t deliver to the peons, but they like me.”  
“They like your money, Sir,” JARVIS cut in.  
“How much do you pay them?” Bucky asked.  
“Well the pizza is about $20 for a large, and $40 for their UFO size, which is what we usually get since Thor and Steve can eat two each, and then there’s the delivery fee and tip, so usually around $500 per delivery.”  
Bucky’s mouth fell open. “You pay them 500 dollars for a pizza delivery.”  
“It’s very good pizza and it’s not like I don’t have the money. They go out of their way to deliver here and I’m not going to be stingy just because I’m famous.”  
“You’re actually a nice guy, aren’t you Stark?”  
“Again, I feel like I should be offended.” But he wasn’t.


	39. Iron Man 3... Sorta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed butchering this movie.

Emily was in the Malibu house when the Mandarin attacked. She had just walked in the door with a brand new tan and the missiles hit. Tony screamed, thrusting the suit at her, but it was too late. A chunk of the ceiling fell on her, rebar piercing her stomach and concrete crushing her bones. It took everything JARVIS had to save Tony as he fell into the ocean, and if JARVIS had a body he’d be crying just like Sir. Tony passed out quickly and when he ended up in that shed with a brilliant young boy who had the same sparkle in his eyes that Emily and Darcy always had, he snapped.  
The Mandarin never got his hands on Pepper, because Tony hadn’t talked to Pepper since the Chitauri and no one could mistake that for affection... So the Mandarin injected Tony Stark with Extremis and Tony screamed and screamed and screamed as the arc reactor fought Extremis for possession of his body. The nanites settled around the arc reactor’s casing finally, ready to heal the hole in his sternum the moment the metal was removed, and Tony found himself with his hands around Killian’s neck. When Killian stopped moving, Tony pulled away and spat on his corpse, then set it on fire out of spite.  
When Tony walked into the Avengers Tower, a fiery orange glow crawling along his skin in the same pattern as the palladium poisoning, Natasha and Clint each took one of his hands and led him down to his lab where they shoved down the back of the futon couch and cuddled until Tony could stop crying.   
After that, Tony spent days in his lab, his lovers coming by to feed and water him as he coded like mad. When Clint walked in one day to see Tony holding a syringe filled with a vibrant blue liquid, he merely raised a brow and Tony explained. Because if he couldn’t trust Clint and Natasha, who could he trust?  
“The nanites in the original Extremis are flawed. They’re too explosive, and I have no way of controlling them. These new Extremis nanites,” he held up the syringe. “Will recode the old Extremis nanites to work the way I want them to. It’s a good thing I remembered that break-through I had in Bern.” He gave Clint an empty smile.  
“When you’ve stabilized Extremis, you’re leaving the lab, Tony. You’re in pain, more than any of us Avengers, but you seem to have forgotten Darcy. She lost her twin. You lost a daughter, but you still have one alive, and she needs you.” Tony looked ashamed and torn, glaring at the syringe in his hand. “Give me the syringe, Tony. You need someone who’s done this before.”  
Tony handed it over and Clint took the elastic band, tied it around Tony’s bicep and neatly injected the blue nanites into Tony’s veins.  
“How long will this take, Tony?”  
“I’m going offline, now. Come back when JARVIS says so.”  
Tony lay on the futon, folded his hands over his arc reactor and closed his eyes.


	40. Sad times

Darcy was curled up on Emily’s bed sobbing. Loki had left to give her her peace, but it hadn’t helped much because Emily’s room no longer smelled of Emily. When a hand touched her shoulder, she jumped, her head turning violently.   
“Daddy!” She held out her arms and Tony hugged her tight, clinging to his living daughter as Clint’s words ran through his mind. “Daddy,” Darcy cried into his shirt.  
“I know, baby. I know,” tears rolled down his face as he sat next to Darcy on Emily’s bed.  
“How did this happen?” Darcy sniffed.  
“I was stupid, beyond stupid. If I had controlled my temper...”  
“It’s not your fault, Daddy! It was that man’s fault, Killian. He killed Emily! It’s not your fault. If it’s your fault, then it’s mine too; I told her it was okay to visit you in Malibu. I thought she’d fly with Natasha and Clint when they left to see you, but she went early!”  
“It’s not your fault, Darcy.”  
“Then it isn’t yours either.”  
“No, you’re right, baby girl. It’s AIM’s fault.” His voice hitched.  
“I want you to burn them to the ground, Daddy.,” Darcy snarled through her tears. “Don’t leave a single one of them standing.”  
“I promise,” Tony said, rubbing circles on Darcy’s back. “I promise.”


	41. Tony should never be allowed to plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SO I have no idea where this is going and my fluff-crack just got really dark, but I swear there's a light at the end of the tunnel, even if it is just an oncoming train.

Steve and Bucky were the first Avengers after Clint and Natasha to back up Tony’s plan to eradicate AIM, having experienced their own vendetta against Hydra. Thor was next, angrier than anyone had ever seen him before.  
“Emily and Darcy were bold, brave, and loyal warriors,” he said. “They were my shield sisters and I will not stand aside and let these AIM scoundrels destroy any more families!” Loki nodded from his brothers side.  
“I knew this Emily very little,” Loki said. “But you have all done so much for me that I feel compelled to assist.” Everyone smiled, knowing better than to believe the aloofness in his voice.  
Bruce sighed, looking sad and worn down. He had stayed with Darcy every night since the news of Emily had reached them, cuddling. He had not changed their odd asexual relationship for even a minute, providing stability for the young woman.  
“Find me an AIM facility and maybe the Big Guy will stop annoying me,” he said. They took that as code for ‘I’d really like to smash something’.

oOoOoOoOoOoO

Discovering the AIM facilities all over the country was both easier than they expected due to the absurd temperatures those with Extremis 1.0 were putting out, very easy for JARVIS to monitor via satellite. What really sucked was chasing everyone down. Soon the team was functioning in pairs tackling bases separately. It was like trying to exterminate cockroaches with only one foot. Within a year, Darcy was out there with them, having spent months on the Bus with Coulson and someone named Melinda. WHen Darcy lasted a full hour and a half against Natasha and proved she could shoot as well as her father, the team had paired her with Tony and Bruce as their sniper. Thor had Loki with his magic, Natasha had Clint, Steve had Bucky, now Tony and Bruce had Darcy. Strangely, it worked.  
Within a year after Darcy joining them, AIM was reduced to small pockets of fugitives operating out of shitty motels at the ass end of nowhere, and the Avengers turned more attention to the chaos that had followed SHIELD’s disintegration.  
“What do you mean the sceptre is missing?!” Loki screamed in Coulson’s face. “Do you have any idea how much power this sceptre is capable of putting out?! The stone within it could be the death of billions!”  
“You’re going to have to expand on that,” Coulson said, unflappable as usual.  
“There are things in this universe call Infinity Stones. Space: the Tesseract. Reality: the Aether. Mind: the stone in the sceptre. Power: the Orb some Terran found not too long ago in the ass end of space. Then there’s the Soul stone and the Time stone, and no one knows where they are. Apart, they had power beyond your imagination. Together they would destroy the universe.”  
There was silence around the dinner table, Clint with noodles still hanging out of his mouth.  
“You didn’t think we should have known this before?”  
“Odin wanted to know about the stones too,” Loki sneered. “He regretted not being able to take the sceptre from you without being suspected of ulterior motives. He thought that I would know where the others were since I was with Thanos for so long, which to be fair I do know more than Odin about the stones, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He decided persuasion was less useful than torture.”  
“And the sceptre? The Mind stone?” Bruce asked.  
“As you saw, power enough to control someone’s mind, but it is so much more. It can create and destroy.”  
“So this is worse than we thought?” Coulson asked, stabbing a piece of broccoli harder than necessary.   
“Yes,” Loki was exasperated, gesturing wildly with his fork. “God, am I surrounded by simpletons? Don’t answer that,” he scowled at Tony. Tony shrugged.  
“So we get the sceptre back,” Steve said. “They clearly don’t know it’s true power, whoever has it, or we’d all be dead.”  
“Here’s the plan,” Tony said and no one dared to question his authority because the look on his face spelled murder. “Cap, you take the team and start the search for the sceptre. Make sure you burn any Hydra base you find to the ground - any Hydra agent left alive is a danger to your goal. Darcy and I have a plan to take out the rest of AIM once and for all. Loki, when you’re not using that magic radar of yours, you report to me or Darcy. We’ve been lax, sloppy. Let’s get our act together and make sure these sick sons of bitches can’t ever hurt anyone again.”  
“We don’t kill people, Tony,” Steve said softly.  
“Keep telling yourself that. Darcy, Loki, with me.” He stood and left the room. They followed.


	42. Steve gets it

When everyone was in bed for the night, Steve snuck down the hall on Darcy’s floor to Emily’s room. He needn’t have bothered. Darcy was spending the night with Tony, Clint, and Natasha, and Jane was staying with Thor. Even Jane had taken a hiatus from Science! to mourn the twin of her best friend. Steve stood in the doorway of the room and eyed the assortment of oddly shaped stuffed creatures and the frankly lovely paintings on the walls. Loki relocated himself to Thor’s floor without anyone asking him to, but Steve could see his imprint in Emily’s room. Truly, the Starks had very little to enshrine Emily’s memory with. Where before Steve’s anger had become sadness, his contemplation of the vibrant young hacktivist stirred up the anger yet again. He’d barely know her, true, but he knew Tony and he knew Darcy and he felt their pain as if it was his own. They were family now, and family protected each other. He wasn’t able to protect Emily, but wasn’t this what the team was for? They were the Avengers, for Christ’s sake. What was Steve doing, standing around, mopey and indecisive? He was an Avenger, and here was a worthy cause that needed avenging. Steve closed the door to Emily’s room and smiled. 

Steve Rogers was a soldier. He had killed before and he was going to do it again.


	43. Happy Happy Joy Joy or Penelope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I fudged the timeline. Forgive. Because there wasn’t enough time between Avengers and Iron Man 3 to encompass my story, I’ve stretched it out to be more like 2 years instead of however many months it was.
> 
> I feel like angst must be balanced out, so here it is.

Two months before the Mandarin fucked everything up for their weird little family, Natasha’s water broke. Tony and Clint freaked out, jumping up from the breakfast table and babbling like babies. It was Thor that stood, clapped his hands together loudly, and said:  
“Calm yourselves, men! Your lady does not need lovers who act as if they’ve taken leave of their senses. Lady Natasha, may I escort you to the medical floor?”  
“You may,” she smiled and took his hand, ignoring her wet pajama bottoms. “Tony, get me my StarkPad. Clint, I want my neck warmer - the one with lavender in it.”  
“Yes!”  
“Got it!”  
“Wait a minute!” Clint said, eyes narrowed. “Since when was Thor all sauve about babies?”  
“He’s the god of fertility,” Loki snorted condescendingly. “Do your homework before you invite gods into your home.”  
“Thank you Loki for that unnecessary comment,” Natasha’s smile was murder. “But I’m having contractions and if you don’t bring me my bagel with raspberry cream cheese and a side of scrambled eggs, hold the whites, and a glass of plain cranberry juice, you will find yourself unable to move from the hospital bed I will put you in. Thank you!” She chirped her thanks and led a grinning Thor away to the elevator. The three men looked at each other, looked at Darcy and Jane who were both red from withholding their laughter and jumped to it.  
“I can’t believe Steve and Bruce are missing this!” Jane squealed. She and Dark jumped up and down in their seats. “You’re going to have a new sibling, Darce!”  
“I have to call Emily!” Darcy shouted in realization. “She’ll kill me if she misses this!” She dashed to the elevator bank and jumped in the second elevator, pressing furiously on the button for her floor. The buttons were there solely for the comfort of people who thought JARVIS was more Skynet than they were comfortable with.  
“Well?” Loki asked Clint and Tony as they appeared with the required items. Loki finished scraping cream cheese onto the perfectly toasted bagel and picked up the breakfast tray. “Off we go.”  
Jane followed them and they were let out on the medical floor just as Darcy walked out of the second elevator, her laptop open in front of her with Emily’s face peering out of Skype.  
“How long has she been having contractions?” Emily asked.  
“Well she hasn’t said anything so I can’t be sure, but contractions happen before the water breaks right?”  
“Right you are, sis. Oh hey, Nat!” They had arrived at Natasha’s room and the woman managed to spare the twins a smile. She was sitting in a comfortable chair as a nurse filled a tall but not too big pool with perfectly filtered water. “Has the doctor checked your dilation?”  
“Yes, I have,” Bruce pushed his head past Darcy to look at Emily. “And I really must repeat that I am not a medical doctor. Again.”  
“I may have never graduated college, but I’ve spent at least six years studying medicine, both psychiatric and physical, so I’ll be right here for you Doc. What is her dilation?”  
“4 centimeters,” Bruce said. “When should I stick her in the water?  
“I’d say around 7 to 8 centimeters. When she’s reached 10 centimeters, then she pushes,” Emily told him. “Hear that Nat? You’ve got a ways to go. I’d suggest a nice game of Chinese checkers.”  
“I’ll survive, dorogoy,” Natasha smiled. She turned to the men with her requested things. “Hand it over Tony.” He handed her the bright pink StarkPad and Clint preempted an order by wrapping the neck warmer around the back of Natasha’s neck; it was already warmed up in the microwave and she smiled. “Loki?”  
The god rolled his eyes but placed the breakfast tray gently on the table next to her. “Anything else, milady?” He asked. Natasha’s grin became toothy.  
“Actually, now that you’ve offered, I could really use a foot rub.” Loki gave her a look of incredulity. Natasha stared him down, her smile never wavering. They stared at each other for a solid five minutes, Loki’s expression went from incredulous to pissed off to stubborn but wavering to defeat finally.  
“As you wish,” he said and his lips quirked in smile as she barked out a startled laugh.  
“That position is taken twice over, moy trikster. But you can be the kid’s godfather if you want.” Loki was stunned and he stopped rubbing her feet briefly until she kicked him.  
“I don’t understand,” he confessed.  
“You are the reason it was possible to make this baby. YOu deserve a place in their life.”  
“Brother...”Thor began with tears in his eyes. Jane 'awww'ed softly, grinning.  
“Shut your trap, Thor!” Loki snapped. Then he turned to Natasha and in a pleasant voice added, “I would be honored.”  
“You need to spend less time with Darcy, my man,” Clint told him. “You’re starting to sound like her.”  
“That’s not a bad thing!” Darcy declared.  
“I might have to agree with Clint here, sis,” Emily laughed.  
“Traitor! You have betrayed the Stark name!”  
“Keep thinking that Dad. You’re just mad that I’m still in parts unknown and not home painting something abstract in red and gold to sell for millions of dollars.”  
“I never!” Tony said. “I’m just worried about you, baby. You should have better protection than a taser and a fake passport. You should be here for this moment.”  
“I’m with you in every way that matters, Dad. I’m here for all of you, especially you, Nat, ‘cause you’re about to go through hell much pain and you need us all here, don’t you?”  
“I do indeed.”  
“Besides, birth is always hard on older women!” Emily cackled as Natasha glared, her fingers clenching together until they were white.  
“Wait how old is she?” Bruce asked. “Her file said she was in her twenties.”  
“I was born in 1928,” Natasha told them. Mouths fell open. Jane giggled before clapping a hand over her mouth. 'Sorry' she mouthed.  
“Ten years younger than Steve,” Emily said. “And thanks to Loki, the serum no longer makes her sterile. I don’t know how that’s going to affect the birth in all honesty, but since she’s still physically young and strong it should be fine. Bruce check her dilation again.”  
Everyone except Clint and Tony promptly turned their backs as Bruce did so.  
“5 centimeters.”  
“This might take a while,” Emily said wryly. “I suggest you all find comfy seats. And probably turn on the tv I have no doubt is behind me.”  
“What do you want to watch?” Tony asked Natasha.  
“CSI,” said Clint and Tony punched him in the arm.  
“Criminal Minds,” Natasha decided.  
“That’s a little violent and nasty for this moment isn’t it?” Bruce asked.  
“I think it is appropriate!” Thor boomed. “Birthing a child is painful and bloody, why should she not steel herself through visual stimulation?”  
Everyone, even Natasha and Loki, raised their eyebrows at that, but no one made to argue his point.  
Eight hours later Natasha was crouching in the pool of water, which had been comfortably warmed, and Tony and Clint each held one of her hands.  
“Ready?” Emily asked. Natasha nodded. “Bruce keep pace with us in case my internet cuts out again.” It had taken a nerve wracking hour for Darcy to reconnect to her twin. Everyone had been half dreading the moment it came back online in case the Korean authorities had caught Emily.  
“It’s time,” Bruce said, pressing the stethoscope to Natasha’s baby bump. “Breathe in.... push!”  
It seemed fairly anticlimactic when the baby slipped free within thirty minutes of Natasha starting to push. Bruce caught the baby easily and pulled it free of the water before tying and cutting the umbilical cord.  
“You did it, Nat,” Tony breathed.  
“She’s beautiful, Lyubovnik,” Clint petted Natasha’s hair. Despite being extremely fit, Natasha was sweaty even as she beamed. Bruce wrapped their daughter in a blanket, placed a little hat on her, and handed her straight to Natasha.  
“What’s her name?” Loki asked.  
“Penelope.”  
“Seriously?” Clint asked and Tony punched him again. “Yeah, I mean, I love the name.” Natasha gave him a Look. Clint said softly, “I mean it. It’s a lovely name, and I hope she’s as vibrant as Miss Garcia.”  
“She will be,” Loki murmured and Natasha grinned at her child, the one she had never dared to hope for.  
“Penelope.”


	44. Not a real chapter

Hi guys. I just wanted to update you on why I've gone silent yet again. I've been dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety due to things like work, getting my first apartment, going back to school, and I got into an accident with my car. I promise I'll get back around to this story even if it takes me a while.


	45. Not A Real Chapter AGAIN SORRY

Hello all. I feel like I owe you an update. I'm starting my final year of college in a week and I will be take 19 credit hours, which is a fair amount. BUT! Thanks to all of your wonderful messages of support I believe I can at least start scraping this mess of a fix back into shape. I kind of let it go, didn't I? I can't promise anything like one chapter a week, but I'll do my best to finish this fic before Christmas. Thank you again for putting up with me.


	46. IM BACK BITCHES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I've been away for so long, I'm not sure what I'm doing anymore on this fic BUT I have finished the chapter that languished in my Google Drive for all of you wondrous people. Fair warning: there may be a good amount of continuity issues as I attempt to finish this, but if ya'll could point any big ones out, you know, the ones that make a difference, I'll fix them good. ;)
> 
> AND I want you guys to tell me what YOU want to see happening as we wrap this up. I don't think we'll get as far as Civil War because that's just a bag of cats I do not want to step on.

With Steve finally on board with the whole ‘rain of fire’ plan, things settled into a rhythm quickly. Tony’s team would do the violent killing version of a pub crawl around the world, one AIM pocket leading them to the next, and Steve would lead the others in an attempt to find the sceptre. Loki would point them to the strongest energy signature he could find and they would destroy the base in search of the artifact. They found weapons charged by the sceptre, but it wasn’t until Loki pointed them in the direction of a castle in Sokovia with the weakest signature yet that they actually made progress. Darcy insisted on going, but conceded to staying in the van.  
“Tony, we need back up!” Steve yelled into the comms as the fast mutant tossed Thor into a tree. “Where are you?”  
“Behind you.” Repulsors blasted energy past Steve and narrowly missed the speedster. The mutant was gone in the blink of an eye.  
“You know what this calls for, Steve?”  
“What?”  
“Magic.”  
“You hate magic.”  
“I hate losing more.”  
“Do you ever lose, dad?” Darcy snarked. “Wow that must burn.”  
There was a violent green blast of magic and a green shockwave rippled out from the explosion. The forest went quiet and Loki called through the trees,  
“I’ve got the fast little brat. Have you got the other one?”  
“Other one?” Steve and Tony looked at each other.  
“You hold the forest, Cap; I’ll go into the castle with Clint. Keep an eye out for this ‘other one’.” Steve nodded in agreement.  
Tony and Clint grabbed each other’s wrists and Tony flew them over the battlements where soldiers lay dying, some were just unconscious, but mostly they were dying, and neither man felt any sympathy for them. The sickos had been experimenting on children, for Christ’s sake. They landed in a tower, where one of the walls had been blasted in, courtesy of Tony. When they reached the main floor, Clint gestured that he was going to head left - Tony should go right. Tony nodded, and they split up. In hindsight, not the smartest thing to do when there was a mutant out there with unknown powers, and they didn’t even know their gender. Yeah, not so smart. When Tony was staring at all the tech behind the secret door, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise in warning and he threw himself to the ground, rolling a safe distance away from the young woman with the creepy-glowy hands.  
“Do I even want to know what you were about to do to me?”  
“Perhaps give you a taste of the death you cause everywhere you go!” she snarled in a Sokovian accent. Suddenly she threw the red at Tony, who dodged again and threw his arms out to call the suit to him. He never should have left it, Tony cursed himself.   
“Dad?!” Darcy’s voice came as the helmet clicked shut.  
“I’m here.”  
“Don’t do that again! We’ve cleaned up outside, should we come in?”  
“Sure but watch your step. I’ve got a mutant in here.”  
“Okay.”  
Either the girl was stupid or brave because she didn’t even flinch when Tony lifted his own glowing hand to loose a repulsor blast at her. A crackling red wall of energy exploded into life before her and the blast hit it hard. Tony saw her wince. Clearly she wasn’t used to using her powers in a head on battle, and Tony suddenly saw how scared she was. Her hands began to move again and Tony let off several more blasts, forcing her to keep the shield up. It flickered around the edges and he could see her sweating.  
“Are you going to kill a girl, Stark?” she called out. “Add another to the thousands you’ve killed?”  
“I’m not going to kill you,” he told her, Extremis and JARVIS analyzing the strength of her little wall. He lowered one hand, then the other, and when he saw her shoulders begin to relax, brought them both up and fired as quickly as he could. The wall dissipated and the girl was thrown back, skidding along the floor. She groaned as Tony walked over to her.  
“You said you weren’t going to kill me. A liar as always.”  
“I won’t deny that I’ve lied, or that my inventions and inaction have killed people. But I’m not going to kill you. Cuffs, Jarv.” Tony pulled the cuffs out of a panel in the back of the suit, unfolded them and clasped them around the girl’s wrists, keeping her hands behind her back. Then he pushed a tiny button on the side and they crackled with energy. “They won’t hurt you,” Tony explained as he helped her to her feet, “But if your mutation is like any of the others we’ve met, you won’t be able to work your mojo either.”  
“What’re you going to do with me?” For once the anger was overpowered by another emotion. Fear. Tony wished it wasn’t him causing it, but he wasn’t about to let an enemy combatant go so she could hurt him or his team. Tony was sure she was one of the kids AIM had been experimenting on, but he didn’t know if she was attacking him because of his old mistakes only or also because she’d been brainwashed.   
“Clint, guys, I have the other one in custody,” he said into his comms. “She wants to know what we’re doing with them.”  
“Bring them back to the tower,” Steve suggested.  
“Bad plan,” Hulk rumbled.  
“Hulk’s right,” came Natasha’s voice.  
“What do you suggest then?” Steve asked just a little petulantly.  
“Don’t we have some kind of super person containment center?” CLint asked and Tony could hear him rolling his eyes.  
“No, but we will soon,” Darcy chimed in. “Where are you, dad? We’ve cleared the castle.”  
“Secret door. Let JARVIS show you.”  
Tony curled a gentle armored hand around one of the mutant’s biceps and led her toward the now closed secret door. It must have been on a timer. It slid open to reveal the team and Darcy, sans Hulk.  
“I think he likes her,” CLint smirked. “He’s got the cuffs out and everything.” Natasha raised a hand to shield her smile while the others glared at Clint. Tony let the faceplate of the suit slide up to reveal his face. He promptly stuck his tongue out at Clint and pointed to Natasha with his free hand.  
“You’re on the hook for his behavior too.”  
“So what’re we doing with the mutants?” Steve asked. “Can we lock them up when they might be the victims here?”  
“They attacked us,” Darcy shrugged. “They may have killed people.”  
“Under duress!” Steve insisted. “We didn’t lock Bucky up when I brought him back.”  
“Bucky was in control of himself and we had JARVIS watching him 24/7.” Tony said. “What’s that quote? Trust but....”  
“Trust but verify,” Darcy completed. “The Raft isn’t going to be done any time son enough to put these two in it. As bad an idea it might be, I think we have to lock them up in the Tower.”  
“But - “ Steve began.  
“We can’t let General Ross get his hands on these two,” Tony said. “He’d likely kill them in his attempts to create a new super soldier serum.”  
“Don’t pretend you care about our lives!” the mutant struggled. “You probably killed my brother so cut off the show!”  
“The speedster is contained but unharmed,” Loki told her haughtily. “I believe my magic is the answer to your problems. I can set up a containment field in one of the Hulk Play Rooms that can hold both of them long enough to engineer something more permanent.”  
“Dunno about that, Lokes,” Tony said. “His girl has an energy power similar to your own.”  
“I highly doubt that. Maybe it looks that way,” Loki conceded. “But Frost Giant magic is at such an anathema to anything Midgardian that it simply isn’t possible for it to be the same.”  
“Maybe you should see it before you judge,” Tony shrugged. “But no, I am not going to let her go for you to experiment with,” he cut Loki off as the god opened his mouth to ask. Thor chuckled and punched his brother’s shoulder, but gentler than he might have before their misunderstanding...  
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Darcy said and everyone nodded in agreement. They stowed the two mutants in the back of the Quinjet and took off, leaving the castle to explode when Clint’s ticking time bombs went off. No one would be able to use it as their evil lair now.


	47. What Happens in Rome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys. I need your help. I want to finish this by Christmas like I promised, but I really want to know what YOU want to read. I'm taking requests for mini-chapters. I can't promise all of them will be written, but I'll try.

Natasha needed a break. She wanted a break from all the death and Nazis and she wanted to spend more time with the happy gurgling Penelope, who had been in an, admittedly, competent Maria Hill’s care while the Avengers went on their strikes.  
So she packed up the baby stuff, threw some clothes in a bag, dragged Tony out of his workshop and Clint out of the shooting range, and had JARVIS order them a room in the most expensive hotel in Rome.   
“Now isn’t this nice?” she said to her boys. They were laying in bed in their underwear, well... Tony was wearing a pair of Natasha’s panties because Clint had hidden all their boxers while the inventor was in the shower. Anyway, they were just cuddling. None of them was willing to peel off their last layer while Penelope was sleeping in her crib on the other side of the room.   
“Can I have my StarkPad back?” Tony asked, but he made no move to take it from the side table on Nat’s side of the bed.   
“Maybe if you order us some lobster tails,” Clint mumbled into Natasha’s stomach.   
“You two are going to eat me out of house and home,” Tony grumbled, but picked up the hotel phone to order anyway. “Three lobster tails. No I don’t want sides.”  
“And ice cream,” Natasha requested.  
“And three sundaes. No cherries. Yes we want spoons, what kind of a question is that? No, just bring us the lobster and ice cream.” He hung up and turned to look at his partners. “Do we want spoons?”  
“Yes,” Natasha said. “No,” Clint said.  
“Don’t be stupid Clint. Remember the last time you tried to eat a sundae without a spoon?”  
“It was epic.”  
“What happened?” Tony asked.  
“He tried eating it like a dog.”  
“Cat,” Clint interrupted.   
“Dog,” Natasha repeated. “And it failed miserably.”  
“I got most of it.”  
“You got most of it smeared on your face you mean.” Clint shrugged, unrepentant.  
“That’d I’d like to see,” Tony grinned. “And by “see” I mean I’d like to take pictures to show Penelope when she’s all grown up. It’d be like the equivalent of showing her boyfriend or girlfriend her baby pictures, but I’d get to embarrass Clint instead.”  
“That only works if I find it embarrassing.”  
“You mean you’ll let me?”  
“Sure. We’ll see in the end which one of us is right.”  
Natasha rolled her eyes and hopped out of bed to check on Penelope. Men.


	48. Not a real chapter

Hello all. I have decided to end this story here. I don't have the time or energy to work on it and I'm struggling with a lot of mental health stuff and a huge load of school work. I'm also starting to apply to grad schools.


End file.
